Valentine's Day - 1964

Rhapsody in Blue – 1964

Experiencing a sleepless night while in battle with a respiratory incapacity, I sought prior-dawn relief by walking from my bed to a television set. Sickened already by contemporary political banter, not to mention my physical influenza ailment, I keyed in to a cable channel of movies.

The 1945 movie Rhapsody in Blue was just beginning. I knew well the music of George Gershwin. Hearing the memorable melodies again would sweeten my disposition and remove me from my seasonal discomfort. The movie carried me away, so to speak. It lifted me into a cloud of nostalgia.

The movie is about Gershwin’s musical elevation and though produced in 1945 it was approximately 20 years removed from its content. The mid-1920s were the years of Gershwin’s best musical output. But the movie carried me 20 more years, 20 years forward to St. Valentine’s Day 1964.

On Christmas Eve Day 1963 I arrived on ship at the port of Naha, Okinawa. As a military musician I was assigned to the 3^rd Marine Division Band after serving in the 2^nd Marine Aircraft Wing Band at Cherry Point, North Carolina. The band’s living quarters was Camp Hague, an old World War II-looking camp with Quonset huts and a couple of Butler buildings. It looked that way because it was indeed an immediate post-World War II Marine Corps base. In fact, the tiny base was headquarters for the entire 3^rd Marine Division for a while.

The United States Government administered Okinawa from 1945 to 1972.

Within weeks after reporting for duty, the band was in preparation for a Valentine’s Day concert at the large U.S. Army Base, Camp Sukiran which was located near the Kadena Air Force base. A large movie and stage theatre was at Sukiran, and during the final days preceding the concert the band rehearsed in that large, “showbiz” edifice.

Impressive efforts is a phrase providing scant justice for work that went into the total production of the performance. The Valentine’s Day Concert’s theme? “Rhapsody in Blue.” The musical score included most of George Gershwin’s recognizable melodies.

The stage’s backdrop situating the 120-piece band, was the skyline of New York City. That large mural was developed onsite by Okinawan artists. Theater technicians, including those who manned the lights, attended the final days of rehearsal just to get things coordinated – to get things right.

The band had the good fortune of having four pianists. Actually, three pianists and one piano player (me). Chief Warrant Officer Griswald, the band officer, selected the best of the pianists to play the lead motif.

On concert evening the theatre was packed, mostly with U.S. Army personnel and their families. In the early 1960s Army and Air Force personnel lived with their families on or off base. Marine Corps personnel were not allowed to bring their families from the United States to the island.

And so it was that a Marine Corps band of virtual bachelorhood presented a grand concert to men, women, and children of our Armed Forces on Valentine’s Day, 1964.  

I am happy, even if only by coincidence, that I saw the 1945 movie Rhapsody in Blue this morning. The movie swept me away from influenza and repositioned me into Valentine’s Day, 1964. The movie was a trigger. That 1964 experience might have been forgotten otherwise. But it was a wonderful time, and with a gap of 53 years, I am thankful for the coincidental recollection.

WENjr

February 22, 2017