As a native Nutmegger myself, I can attest to the ritual presence of fife and drum corps at our civic and patriotic celebrations in the mid-twentieth century and to their popular decline towards the end of that period. But I knew nothing of the historic role Connecticut itself played in the development and preservation of this very American musical form, a situation James Clark’s history of Connecticut’s fife and drum has remedied.
Clark tracks the evolution of fife and drum traditions from its roots in fourteenth-century Switzerland to its reinvention in early colonial New England and continues through the War of Independence and the Civil War, through America’s industrialization and into the new millennium. He explains the changing functions of the corps through each of these periods as it transitions from a military tool for communicating with and managing troops, to a small-town form of social engagement.
Clark connects Connecticut fife and drum to the evolution of American identity. He examines the now-iconic image of “The Spirit of ‘76” with its fifer and two drummers. It has become a meme, enacted and called upon to represent America over and over. In popular culture, that image is often accompanied by a fife and drum playing “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” The rag-tag musicians in the painting were the Yankee doodles, a term of insult with which the formal British troops taunted the unsophisticated American revolutionaries. But, argues Clark (and others), Americans were beginning to shape an identity in which those rag-tag militias and the hard work of ordinary folk were celebrated. “Yankee Doodle” was appropriated by colonial troops and turned into a patriotic cheer. Clark asserts that the humble fife and drum were the perfect instruments for this emerging cocky but rag-tag nation. Indeed, to my ears, they are the emblematic sound of Americana.
Connecticut’s golden age of fife and drum seems to have begun after the Civil War—when hundreds of military-trained fifers and drummers returned home to organize social corps—and ended sometime in the mid-twentieth century. During that time, freed from military restrictions, the music evolved in new directions, with “ancient” corps seeking to preserve the form and “modern” corps seeking innovation. Small towns along the lower Connecticut River became strongholds of New England fife and drum traditions. Social venues for performing included civic and patriotic celebrations and parades, especially Memorial Day and July 4th. The Moodus Drum and Fife Corps (established in 1860), for example, performed at the dedication of the Washington Memorial in 1885.
In the 1880s, as New England became an industrialized region, factory workers organized into corps to compete with the ancient groups established during the Revolution, each with a characteristic sound, each with a distinctive purpose. Some of these troupes performed well into the twentieth century. It was during this period that competitions (and therefore standardization) became important performance venues. In the mid-1950s, the Deep River [Connecticut] Drum Corps created what came to be known as the Deep River Ancient Muster. Musters (there are now many) include parades, competitions, and “jollification,” a free-for-all musical jamboree in which anyone with a fife or a drum joins in the playing of standards. The muster, writes Clark, “is a defining celebration that helps to unite our community” (157). He refers to the fife and drum community, of course, but it unites people from all over New England and connects them with our historical roots.
Clark, himself a drummer since 1964, provides detailed accounts of the changes in drum construction, methods of play, and styles of ornamentation as well as the increasing complexity of compositions. He provides a comparable analysis of the fife and includes as well portraits of important historical figures, some of whom were his own teachers.
Although the general popularity of fife and drum corps in Connecticut began to wane in the 1960s, it has never fully disappeared. Clark and others feel they are custodians of “a valuable cultural tradition” (161)—hence this book and their ongoing teaching efforts—and a younger generation is learning to appreciate the old tradition while innovating and modernizing it. The Deep River muster is still held on the third Saturday of July, and the last time I visited, in 2006, this annual celebration was alive with hundreds of jollifiers rocking the standards long into the night.
Clark is perfectly suited to his task. An intimate of the form itself as a student, teacher, director, and performer, he is also a trained scholar. His research was extensive and incisive. While filled with the minute details that historians love to include, this book is an easy and friendly read that will satisfy both professional and lay scholars.
Since fife and drum corps are both visual and auditory arts, a DVD—or at least a few website or YouTube references—would have given greater dimension to Clark’s text. I also would like to have read more about the costumes and uniforms the corps wear: who were/are they portraying and why? But that’s the symbolic anthropologist in me.
Clark’s Connecticut’s Fife & Drum Tradition contributes a small, but valuable puzzle-piece to our understanding of American culture and identity. It will fit nicely on the bookshelves of historians, sociologists, or anthropologists who are interested in American regional histories and traditions; New England and Connecticut folk life; military music or wind instruments and drumming practices.
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[Review length: 883 words • Review posted on January 9, 2012]