U.S. Marine Band

The Marine Band, known as “the President's own,” is a unit of the U.S. Marine Corps. It is assigned to play at the White House on ceremonial occasions, such as the arrival of a foreign head of state, state dinners, and cultural events. The director of the Marine Band serves as the musical adviser to the President in organizing the music for ceremonial occasions.

Established on July 11, 1798, by President John Adams, the band is the oldest musical organization in the U.S. armed forces and the oldest continuous unit of the Marine Corps. It has played at every Presidential inauguration since Thomas Jefferson's in 1801 and at every inaugural ball since James Madison's in 1809. The first dancing at the White House occurred in 1828, during the Presidency of John Quincy Adams, to the music of the Marine Band.

The band achieved its greatest prominence after 1880 when John Philip Sousa assumed the position of musical director and transformed it into the best band in the nation. Its concerts in Washington, D.C., became cultural events when it premiered Sousa's new marches, such as “Semper Fidelis” and “The Washington Post” march, which inspired a dance craze in the United States and Europe. In 1891 Sousa took the band on its first national tour, and since then the band has made such tours every fall except during wartime. The Marine Band's recordings of Sousa marches were some of the first ever made for Thomas Edison's phonograph.

Today the band or its individual performers play more than 600 times each year. In 1990 it made an 18-day concert tour of the Soviet Union as part of a historic Soviet-American Armed Forces Band Exchange designed to promote better understanding between the two nations.

See also “Hail to the Chief”; “Ruffles and Flourishes”

Sources

• Elise Kirk, Music at the White House (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986)