College of North Carolina band, which formed the nucleus of the B-1 Band. Other members were recruited from Greensboro’s James B. Dudley High School, with permission from their parents. That school’s band director was James Parsons, who had turned the school’s 120-piece marching band into one of the best in the region. Parsons had come to North Carolina from Decatur, Ill., to work with Robert Nathaniel Dett, one of the greatest African-American composers of the early 20th century. However, Parsons found Dett extremely difficult to work with and left to direct Negro music at Greensboro public schools. When Bernard Mason, the band director at A&T College of North Carolina, failed the Navy’s physical, Parsons was re- cruited to be the bandmaster, though he was never officially given that rank; the highest rank Parsons or any other member of the B-1 Band achieved was musician first class.


Training in the South Once the band had been assembled, the musicians were sent to Norfolk, Va., for basic training. Navy mess- men also trained there, but the band members were housed in separate barracks. “We [CONTINUES ON PAGE 70]


(left) The U.S. Navy B-1 Band participates in a parade in Hawaii. (above) B-1 Band direc- tor James Parsons teaches a student in Chapel Hill, N.C., how to play the trumpet. (top) The B-1 Band performs while the American flag is raised at the preflight school at the University of North Carolina. (facing page) The B-1 Band marches in a parade. (previous spread) Mem- bers of the B-1 Band perform around a piano.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84