ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, May 20, 1996 TAG: 9605200151
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: MIKE FEINSILBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
One day, John Bourgeois was at work at his regular job site, playing the French horn with the United States Marine Band for the visiting crown prince of Japan.
Thirty-four years later, Bourgeois was back in the White House - as he had been hundreds and hundreds of times in the interlude - this time directing the band. He looked up and saw the same guest, who by now was Japan's emperor.
Bandmaster Bourgeois had gone full circle.
Now the band leader, who can't count the times he has led ``Hail to the Chief,'' is preparing to retire in July as the 25th leader of the oldest professional musical organization in America. It's the United States Marine Band, whose chief military mission is making music for presidents and their guests.
Or, as one of the band members put it: ``The White House is our main gig.''
Bourgeois, 61, who rose from private to colonel, has led his musicians through joyful and solemn times. He took them by boat to Liberty Island for the rededication of the Statue of Liberty - the band had also played at its original dedication in 1886 - and he led them on a tour of the old Soviet Union, playing the tunes of John Philip Sousa under the portrait of Vladimir Lenin.
And under his baton the band put sound to a nation's sorrow when it played at the funeral of John F. Kennedy at the request of his widow.
Bourgeois (pronounced boor-ZWHA) repeats with pride what he heard then-President Bush tell his successor, Bill Clinton: ``The best thing about being president is the Marine Band.'' Every president has loved the band; Thomas Jefferson gave it its title, ``The President's Own.''
Hundreds of times a year, and often on short notice, the band plays at the White House, welcoming a potentate, accompanying a soloist from Las Vegas or a star of ballet or playing music to dance by.
Sometimes its tunes accompany history, as when Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin made peace on the White House lawn and the band played on.
It is more of a concert band than a marching unit, even though Sousa, its 17th and most famous conductor, composed spirited marches that still give a rush to high school football teams across America.
Bourgeois has led the 147 musicians, including 40 women, for 17 years. Son of a Louisiana oilman, he is the progeny of two famous Cajun names - a Bourgeois married to a Boudreau. He is also a gourmet Cajun cook, famous for his wicked jambalaya.
In an interview in the Marine Barracks on Capitol Hill, where a battlefield-sized desktop bears his collection of toy soldier bandsmen (some of whose directors are modeled after him), Bourgeois recalled making music under nine presidents:
nThe time Leonard Bernstein, dressed in a cape, was in the White House audience. Bourgeois noticed him, summoned him, handed him the baton with a single word - ``maestro'' - and stood by while the premier musician of his day conducted the band in the ballet music from ``Aida.''
nThe time in 1978 when the band played the Romanian national anthem for the arrival of communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, only to learn that the anthem had been changed.
The Marines were embarrassed but blameless, Bourgeois said. To guard against just that sort of the band drum major had sung the anthem's melody over the telephone to someone in the Romanian Embassy. What the embassy didn't know was that Bucharest had adopted a new anthem several months earlier.
And another incident in the Carter administration, this one a tender one:
The band was setting up for a performance while off to the side daughter Amy Carter and her violin class were practicing ``The Gavotte'' from Bach's ``French Suite No. 3.'' It is a piece the Marine orchestra plays as dignitaries and the president enter the White House on state occasions.
Softly, suddenly, spontaneously, the Marines' strings joined in. The girls and the professionals finished the piece together.
The president was touched, Bourgeois said. Among presidents, he said, Carter was ``the best listener.'' Bourgeois got to know all his presidents, and has a good word for each. He remembered an occasion when Ronald Reagan was leaving office. Bourgeois had heard that Reagan once played the harmonica. So he presented him with one.
Reagan hesitated, and Bourgeois worried. He thought he may have made a mistake. Then the president put it to his lips and out came ``Red River Valley.'' It may have been rusty, but it was music to Bourgeois' ears.
Tickets to the July 11 ``Change of Command'' concert at Washington's Constitution Hall may be obtained by sending a self-addressed stamped envelope to Marine Band Tickets, 8th and I Sts. S.E., Washington, D.C. 20390-5000.
AP-DS-05-15-96 1411E
LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: APby CNBMarine Corps Band Director Col. John Bourgeois takes a break from
a recent rehearsal of the Marine Chamber Orchestra at Sousa Band
Hall in Washington. Bourgeois is retiring after 34 years. color.