West Point Band at 200 From fife and drums to livestreaming
WEST POINT, N.Y. — Sure, there are plenty of bands that have stayed together a long time — the Rolling Stones (1960s), the Boston Pops (1880s).
Then there is the West Point Band, the official band-in-residence of the U.S. Military Academy.
Last week, the band officially turned 200 years old.
It is the longest continuously serving band in the Army and the academy’s oldest unit. Its roots predate the academy itself, going back to the fife players and drummers serving as field musicians since George Washington established an Army post here in 1778.
Now in its bicentennial year, the band celebrated its 200-year anniversary on Thursday with a very modern feat. It performed a live video stream at the Eisenhower Hall Theater here at this prestigious institution overlooking the Hudson River about an hour’s drive north of Manhattan.
At 1500 hours sharp, 3 p.m., the band’s conductor and commander called the musicians to order with an “Attention!” that brought them ramrod straight in their dress uniforms that bear military ranks on the sleeves and shoulders.
The band is not a cadet band but instead is made up of active-duty soldiers. Some, like Master Sgt. Sam Kaestner, a clarinetist with the concert band, signed up right out of prestigious music conservatories and went through boot camp like any other new military recruit.
Others were military members who happened to show the musical ability to warrant an audition, such as Staff Sgt. Jeremy Gaynor, a lead singer for the group’s rock ensemble.
Gaynor said that his previous deployments have included working as a food inspector on an Army base, but that “this is the best gig I’ve had in my career thus far.”
There are 84 soldiers in the band including support staff members, whose mission is “to educate, train and inspire the corps of cadets” and to serve as ambassadors for the academy. Smaller ensembles include the Concert Band, the Marching Band and the Hellcats.
The West Point Band also includes the more contemporary Benny Havens Band, which performs country, rock and other genres that bear little likeness to the repertoire of the fife and drum corps that drilled cadets and provided musical order when the academy opened in 1802.
After relying on various musical units, the academy established the current one as the West Point Band on June 8, 1817.
It handles the official musical requirements at the academy, including military and patriotic ceremonies, and its musicians fulfill more than 1,600 official missions every year.
That can include academy dances, formal concerts, military and patriotic ceremonies, parades and the pregame display at Army home football games at Michie Stadium with Army parachutists dropping down to the 50-yard line.
It also includes daily rituals. Buglers from the band play at reveille as the American flag goes up in the morning and as it slides down in the evening in a ritual known as retreat. The band’s fifers, drummers and buglers direct cadets in their various drills, duties and field activities, including marching on the plain outside Washington Hall.
Three times a day, the band marches the several thousand cadets together into the huge mess hall.
The band provides a four-year soundtrack to cadets beginning with their first crew cuts upon arriving at the academy during Reception Day up until they are largely deployed as officers overseas, often in combat zones.
Few waking hours pass during the cadets’ term without the band playing in some form.
“They hear us their first day here, and if they are buried at West Point, we will play at their burial,” Kaestner said.
He said the band’s military themes become so ingrained that even at casual events, “it’s hard not to play something that doesn’t make some cadets stand at attention, they’re so used to doing that.”
The band has played for almost every president, including performances in 20 presidential inauguration parades, as well as at funerals for prominent generals.
It played at the dedication of the Erie Canal. It played on a runway tarmac to welcome the American hostages back from Iran in 1981. It has performed alongside the New York Philharmonic and has been conducted by musical maestros, including Arturo Toscanini and Leopold Stokowski.
During Thursday’s performance, band staff members wearing camouflage fatigues and tan combat boots tended to audio and technical needs.
“As we move into our third century,” a band announcer intoned in his introduction, as Sgt. 1st Class Bryan Uhl readied his trumpet.
Among his other duties, Uhl, 45, plays taps at military burials — a vital role, especially because there is a growing shortage of buglers.
“Playing taps is the most meaningful thing I’ve ever done as a military musician,” said Uhl, who played it at Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf’s burial and at the burial of his own grandfather, a Navy man.
Taps is hardly a technically demanding piece, he said, but it requires a lot of focus. Distractions include inclement weather, the emotional strains of the ceremony and the pressure of performing cleanly and seamlessly.
A classically trained trumpeter who also likes jazz trumpeters such as Chet Baker and Lee Morgan, Uhl said he joined the Army as a bugler and served in basic training in a battalion called Company B.
“So I was literally the boogie-woogie bugle boy of Company B,” he said, referring to the popular World War II song.
The band kicked off its performance with the “Official West Point March” and finished with “The Army Goes Rolling Along.” The band’s commander, Lt. Col. Tod Addison conducted for part of the concert.
The musicians were briefed on their coming performances, including a Fourth of July fireworks celebration in Manhattan. Then, Sgt. Maj. Chris Jones, a clarinetist, gave the final command to the musicians.
“Fall out!”