My New Black Magazine - NYU Black Renaissance Noire BRN-FALL-206 ISSUE RELEASE | Page 170

BLACK RENAISSANCE NOIRE

Today’s soaring travel costs now
severely curtail long-established bands’
abilities to reach distant community
parades. Diminishing public funding
has disrupted and even eliminated
respected school music programs,
which have historically furnished a
fertile ground for America’s new
musicians. Marching band numbers
have plummeted from thousands to a
few hundred in a decade. Continuity of
this indispensable centuries-old musical
heritage is gravely threatened.

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Their rhythmic repetitions of form and
tone are finely structured articulations
of the black tradition, which transform
the bands’ creative fire and ignite a perfect
response. The crowd triumphantly
demands the whole story, the ancient
story as a path to the future. It’s fanfare,
not a floor show. It’s an elegant,
ritualized, witty village pageant, a
reminder that culture’s song is something
we carry with us all the time. The black
marching band series’ timing is crucial.