The melody is the same...

...but the lyrics have been cleaned up.

Introducing: The Sousaphone Cam

After having watched only the first 20 seconds of this video, I had it figured it for the World's Worst Idea, simple in concept yet pointless in reality: stick a video camera in the bell of a sousaphone and film a Great Lakes bootcamp graduation ceremony.

But after sticking through it, I changed my mind. The Sousaphone Cam serves a valuable purpose. This video accurately portrays what it's like to be be the poor slob in the back of the band carrying 30 pounds of plumbing supplies on your shoulder. You have no idea what's going on. Most of what you hear is yourself. When playing in a drill hall, hanger or other acousical monstrosity, the sound of the actual band arrives after a five-second delay.

Watching this evokes vivid recollections of my days as a junior MU. I'm 64 years old, so I suppose that having bad memories is better than having no memory at all.

Score one for me

I grind my own coffee beans and brew the coffee in a French press on the kitchen counter. It's delicious, and I can make it as strong as I want, which is "Navy strong."

It's sloppy affair, though. I get beans and ground coffee all over the counter, and the pot leaves rings.

My wife hates this. She keeps moving the operation from one spot to another. She puts fancy-dancy trays and mats under it. It never works.

Yesterday, she said she's sick of it. "Every time you make a pot of coffee," she said, "I have to scrub the stains and sweep the floor."

I couldn't help myself. "I guess it's called a 'coffee mess' for a reason," I said.

Chick-a-boom!

Ahh---Bag Band

Despite any reputation I may have earned in the Navy as a jazz player--or worse--my favorite gig was not dance band, show band, combo or solo piano. It was bag band.

At least that was our name for it, derived from the black pouches of march-size music we carried slung over our shoulders, pouches full of "shitty ditties," some published for concert band instrumentation, many written for specifically for cut-down bag bands.

My preference for these gigs was partly based on--I'll admit it--laziness, or, as I called it at the time, efficient resource management. Bag band gigs were easy gigs. No hauling two tons of electronic gear. No hour-long set-up and sound check. Just a dozen or so MUs with horns, music and baton.

But I also liked the product. Our bag bands were good. A lot us us had come from seagoing unit bands and were accomplished at getting a big sound from a small band.

And often, spirited marches and razzmatazz patriotic ditties were exactly what a certain audience expected. The Northeastern Navy Show Band routinely traveled with those black pouches and packed the trailer with a tuba and bass drum easily accessible. You never knew when bad booking, bad weather or good sense might dictate that a certain audience would be happier with a little John Philip Sousa than a lot of Barry Manilow.

In this video, you can see the early a.m. shadows on the pavement as a bag band from Navy Band Southeast struts its stuff. Well, actually, there's no strutting going on, because this is an A+  tup-of-the-line operation: a sit-down bag band gig. It doesn't get any better than this.

Lexicon Update 23(b)(17) of 18NOV12

I guess I sorta forgot about it, which is odd; the Navy Musicians Lexicon is what started this blog in the first place.

Well, I just stumbled across it, weeded through it and updated it. The revised and expanded Navy Musicians Lexicon is now online.

A Veterans Day Salute to our Military Bands

Originally published in the Rock Island Argus & Moline Dispatch, Nov. 8, 2012

---

I love military band concerts. Listening to our nation's finest musicians perform with precision and flair evokes deep feelings of forgivable--I hope--pride. I once was a Navy bandleader. Long ago I turned in my baton, and now I'm the old guy who sets up his folding chair in the park and stands at a rusty "Attention" when the band plays "Anchors Aweigh."

As much as I enjoy watching a military band parade down Main Street or play patriotic tunes in a high school auditorium, I know that such public performances are only a small part of their job. Providing ceremonial and musical support for our Armed Forces is the real reason for military bands. At this, their true mission, they prove their worth daily.

If you have a relative or close friend who has enlisted in the Navy, you may have attended a boot camp graduation at Illinois's Great Lakes Recruit Training Command. This stirring ceremony marks the recruit's transition from a kid who has trouble making his own bed to a Guardian of Freedom. The occasion is accompanied by spirited martial music, not from a digital recording, but from Navy Band Great Lakes, an active duty group of military professionals. Why? Because those new sailors deserve nothing less than the best.

It’s less likely that you’ve attended a Navy change of command ceremony. The transfer of command of a ship or squadron from one experienced officer to another is the most serious of occasions. Here, the presence of a military band lends solemnity to the moment. Like those brand new sailors at Great Lakes, our Armed Service's leaders and seasoned forces deserve the best.

And, unless you're a veteran yourself, it's highly unlikely that you have been forward deployed or detailed to a combat zone. A world away from the parades and speeches, thousands of our service men and women today are attending to duty wearing full battle dress. Going in harm's way is their way of life. After a quarter of a century, I still look back at my time in the Korean Demilitarized Zone as the greatest service I ever offered my countrymen. Our Marines on duty in that no-man's land deserved entertainment, brief diversion from the stress of serving on a narrow strip of land between enemies with artillery pointed toward the American forces in the middle. Believe me, the sound of a thousand Marines shouting "Oorah!" as they spring to their feet during a rendition of "God Bless the U.S.A." does not quickly fade away.

Some say that funding for military bands should be cut because they're wasteful frills that aren't strictly necessary. Few who believe that have ever served in uniform.

Marine Corps Dress Blue uniforms are not "strictly necessary"--Marines fight in combat utility uniforms. But shouldn't we honor our finest warriors by giving them the finest ceremonial wear for formal occasions?

Air Force chaplains are not "strictly necessary"--anyone can pray, and Bibles are cheap. But shouldn't those who fly the heavens in our defense receive spiritual care?

Cut from our Armed Forces everything that isn't "strictly necessary," and you'll have an Army that's been stripped of its dignity and a Navy that nobody wants to join.

On Veterans Day, we salute those who have served us so well. I offer an additional "Bravo Zulu"--the Navy signal code for "Well done"--to our active duty military musicians. For them, Veterans Day is not a holiday. It's a working day of ceremonies, concerts and parades, another day to do what they do best:

Support our troops.

Copyright 2012 Frank Mullen III