By Sgt. 1 st Class Doug Sample, USA
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON — Although they are not on a special diplomatic mission, one might say the Jazz Ambassadors are the Army's official emissaries when it comes to jazz music.

The band has appeared in all 50 states, as well as in Mexico, Japan and India. In 1995, the Ambassadors performed in England, Wales, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Czech Republic as part of the World War II 50th anniversary commemoration.

The Jazz Ambassadors are one of several military ensembles that help the Defense Department observe Jazz Appreciation Month during April. President Bush proclaimed the month long celebration.

Army Chief Warrant Officer Kevin Laird, the group's musical director, said the 19-member orchestra, which was formed in 1969, has been widely acclaimed wherever it has performed, and that praise has made the group a hot commodity among military jazz groups. A large file in his office is filled with letters from prospective concert sponsors.

The band's members performed two concerts as part of the Pennsylvania Jazz Festival in Mansfield, Pa., in March. They played April 3 at Indiana (Pa.) University's Fisher Auditorium. From there, the band took off on a 33-city East Coast swing, performing almost daily.

"That's one of the unique things about the group — we are a full-time touring musical organization," Laird said. "Most other military ensembles are assigned to a garrison or a post where they have some responsibility locally. Our primary mission is the touring function. That's why we're out year round; that's what the Army created this organization to do."

In fact, Laird said, his band is on the road so much, there are occasions that leave little time for practice.

"We practice as much as we can, but there are times when we are so busy locally that we've gone on tour with practically no preparation at all," he said. "Ideally, we like to have a few weeks to train up that enables us to do new music that challenges the band and keeps us fresh, but there certainly have been times that we went out with no preparation at all."  

But then again, who needs practice when you have a band in which most members have studied at the best music schools in the country and accompanied the some of the biggest names in jazz music?

Laird says some of the group's members gave up promising careers in the civilian music industry playing with groups like the Maynard Ferguson band, "to become soldiers."

Sgt. 1 st Class Christopher Buckholz, the group's lead trombonist, holds music degrees from the University of Michigan, Yale and Wake Forest, and has performed with the Four Tops, The Temptations, Tony Bennett, Natalie Cole, Rosemary Clooney, Bob Hope, Joe Williams and others.

Others, like lead singer Sgt. Marva Lewis, came to the group by pure coincidence. Lewis was a petroleum specialist with the Army before joining the group. She was a member of the Army's Soldiers Show touring group before auditioning for and winning the spot as the Ambassador's lead vocalist.

"Lewis is an amazing talent," Laird said. "I guess the one thing about her is that I'm so glad she found her way into the Army band program. It's just by some series of really fortunate coincidences that we discovered her talent and got her into a place where she can really blossom."

Laird said he can't single out any particular member for the group's success. He said because jazz music is "very structured," everybody has a written part and a specific responsibility on stage.

"There's always room in the music for band members to bring their personality into it," he said, allowing all 19 performers to make a unique contribution.

That contribution can be heard in the diverse collection of jazz songs the group performs -- from big-band swing, bebop, Latin, and contemporary jazz, to popular tunes and Dixieland, all of which Laird said highlight the many individual creative talents and gifted soloists within the group.

"We try to play everything from traditional jazz of the    '20s all the way up to contemporary stuff," he said. "There's energy in music that appeals across all the generations, even the music of the '20s. When we play Dixieland or traditional jazz, that (music) seems to appeal to high school kids as much as the contemporary stuff."

Although the band's music appeals to a broad audience, Laird said no one appreciates jazz more than the scores of veterans who come to hear the group perform. Part of the Ambassadors' concert routine is to pay tribute to veterans in the audience, he said.

"Night after night, you see them stand up, and it's usually two or three generations, from every walk of life," he said. "But they all stand up and look so proud, and they hear the audience applaud to acknowledge their service. That, to me, is a really powerful moment."

Surely there will more powerful moments, as Laird and his band raise awareness of jazz through their music. He said that during the group's tour the Ambassadors will make it a point to remind audiences that April is Jazz Appreciation Month.

"Jazz music is not as widely appreciated as it should be," Laird said. "I thinks it's great that we have a month set aside to raise the awareness, ... but one of the privileges on this job is that we actually get to celebrate jazz all year round."
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