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.