In the fall of 1971, I was newly married to Claudette [DeRocher], a trumpet player, and was attending St. Mary’s University of San Antonio, Texas, majoring in Music Education. After having dropped piano for the third time, and tiring of school, I joined the United States Army on 17 October 1971 as a trumpet player. After training my assignment would be as a member of the Fifth U.S. Army Band at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. A week after I joined the Army, Claudette and I learned we would be expecting our first child the following summer.
I entered basic training on 5 January 1972, and graduated in April. Claudette and I packed up our 1965 Rambler Classic and drove to Norfolk, Virginia to the Armed Forces School of Music. I attended the school until the first of September, during which time, I began to write music for the jazz bands that rehearsed everyday. My first attempt was disastrous, but a Navy instructor took pity on me and pointed out my mistakes, and told me to rewrite it. He played it again the following day. We did this over and over until I got it right. At the school and in my first two years in the Army, I must have arranged at least one new piece a week. During my stay at the "School", the Army's premier touring jazz band and part of the Army Field Band performed there. Known as the Studio Band, they later were renamed “the Jazz Ambassadors”. I was really amazed and impressed with the ability and high musical standards achieved by this group, and I remember telling Claudette that maybe someday, I would be in that band. Also, while at the School of Music our family grew by one. Erik Lee Booker was born in June 1972.
After graduating from the School of Music I moved my family back to San Antonio, and started my career as a trumpeter with the 5th Army Band. It is here I met future Texas band directors, Gary Potter, and Larry Schmidt. Bob Howard, my best friend from high school, was already in the band. John Pearson, band director at MacArthur High School was kind enough to let me bring charts over to try out with his band. Occasionally, I played “gigs” on trumpet with Dale Schultz with the Paul Elizondo Orchestra. My high school band director, Al Sturchio would commission me to write jazz charts for his jazz orchestra. During Christmas 1972, President Truman was very ill, and our band was put on alert to fly to Kansas at a moment's notice. We were to support any funeral ceremonies that would be held at the President's home. The day after Christmas we got word that President Truman had died. That evening we boarded a C-130 at Kelly Air Force Base and flew to Kansas. All I can remember was how cold it was. When we got to our destination around midnight, the Army planners put the band in with hundreds of other soldiers in an elementary school gym. The next day we rehearsed our part of the ceremony, and the following day we took part in a nationally televised memorial ceremony at the President's house just next to his Presidential Library. That evening the band returned to San Antonio. Two months later President Johnson died, and once again we took part in that service, too. It was even colder in the "hill country" at President Johnson's ranch than it was in Kansas.
I continued with my writing and playing trumpet for the next two years, and even did some conducting at the Ft. Sam Houston Playhouse Theatre. I left the Army at the end of my enlistment and moved my family to Denton, Texas, just before Christmas of 1974. I attended college at North Texas State University in the spring, majoring in composition. After two months, I realized I missed the camaraderie and hands-on excitement of an Army band. In May 1975 I re-enlisted into my old unit at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas, and we moved back to San Antonio.
That summer, Claudette and I bought a house and settled down (we thought) to the routine of Army life. In August 1975, my Bandmaster offered me two free tickets to see The Army Field Band of Washington, D.C. perform at Trinity University. At first I declined, but at the last minute decided to go. As luck would have it, one of my senior sergeants was at the concert and pulled me back stage at the intermission to talk to the commander of the Band, Major Sam Fricano. He told me that his chief arranger Dave Volpe was retiring and that he had heard I was good arranger. He wanted to know if I would be interested in auditioning for the position of music arranger for the Field Band. To make a long story short, I flew to Ft. Meade, Maryland (their headquarters) just outside of Washington, D.C. for the audition, and was accepted.
In March 1976, I sold my house, packed up the family and drove to Ft. Meade. I immediately began writing new music for the Field Band for their spring tour in late April. During the spring and summer, I continued to write for the concert band, but occasionally I would sneak over to the Studio Band rehearsals to listen, pick up new ideas and try to get them to play my music. I also took private composition lessons at Towson State University from the great jazz composer and arranger Hank Levy. Although I had my first two pieces published by Kendor music that year, by September of 1976, I knew I wanted to do more than write music for the rest of my military career. I not only wanted to write it, I wanted to conduct it, and someday, hopefully become the Director of the Studio Band. To do that, I would have to become an Army Bandmaster, a Warrant Officer. I reported to Major Fricano, the day before he left on the Field Band's fall tour, and asked him for his permission to request admission into the Bandmaster course the following January (1977). He smiled knowingly, and said, "I was wondering when you were going to get around to it."
Army Bandmaster
On the first day of December, I was accepted for Bandmaster training at the School of Music beginning in January. In four weeks, I cleared quarters, raced my family back to San Antonio to stay with Claudette's parents, and flew to Norfolk, Virginia. The course of instruction was six long grueling months. We began with eighteen candidates, and only ten of us graduated. We took courses in Music History, Form and Analysis, Band Administration (the Army way), Score Study, Conducting, Orchestration and Arranging, Drill and Ceremony, Inspections, etc. Claudette and Erik drove up from San Antonio for the graduation, and she pinned on my Warrant Officer bars at the ceremony.
My first assignment was at Ft. Polk, Louisiana for three enjoyable years as Bandmaster of the Fifth Infantry Division Band. I was twenty-five and the youngest Bandmaster in the Army. I was full of an overabundance of energy and determined to succeed at everything. Looking back now, I believe I must have been exasperating to my sergeants, especially the older ones. We all survived and they taught me how to be an officer. In 1978, the band flew to West Germany for Reforger '78. We performed for six weeks throughout the military exercise area (near Frankfurt), enjoying the German hospitality, especially the beer and snitzel..
One of the highlights of my time at Fort Polk, was conducting the 5th Infantry Division Band at the 1980 Arkansas Bandmaster Association conference and performing with Harvey Phillips. But what I remember most about Ft. Polk was that Claudette and I were blessed with two more children, Adam and Colleen.
In 1980 I received orders for Frankfurt, West Germany as Bandmaster of the Third Armored Division. I flew to Germany first, and six weeks later Claudette and the kids followed. In January 1981, the American Hostages held in captivity by the Iranian government were released. Our band performed for their departure from Rhein-Main Air Force Base to the states. I remember conducting the band during "God Bless America", and suddenly found myself being hugged by one of the released hostages who was crying and thanking me for being there. I may have cried a little bit, too. Each year the band provided music at the World War II memorial service at Margraten, Netherlands, and at the annual Nijmegan Marches, also in the Netherlands. Of course, we performed many formal band concerts and military ceremonies in the Hessen, and Bavarian area of Germany.
In 1983, the Bookers were again moved by the Army to Brooklyn, New York where I became the Commander and Bandmaster of the 26th Army Band, "The Army Band of New York City." During this time, the band provided music for all visiting heads of states, for Mayor Koch's city ceremonies, concerts in the park and at the World Trade Center. In 1986, the band performed for many of the activities in support of the Centennial of the Statue of Liberty.
In May 1986, I received a phone call from the executive officer of the Army Field Band. He asked me if I would be interested in becoming the Director of the Army's "Jazz Ambassadors." I took about one second to think it over and said, "When do I start?" In August 1986, I reported to the Field Band for the second time in my life and by October, I was on a forty day coast to coast concert tour of the United States with the Jazz Ambassadors.
During my seven years as their director, I took the Jazz Ambassadors on many tours throughout all sections of our great country. We also performed in many parts of the world. In February and March of 1989, the Department of the Army sent the Jazz Ambassadors on a thirty day tour of India performing in New Delhi, Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Bangalore, and Poona. We even paid a visit to the great Taj Mahal. In June and July that same year, the band did a twenty-six day tour of six countries in western Europe which included performances at the Nice Jazz Festival in France, the North Sea Jazz Festival at The Hague in the Netherlands, and the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. We performed with Louie Bellson and Don Menza at the 1987 National Association of Jazz Educators in Atlanta. The band marched in the Presidential Inauguration Parades in 1989 and again in 1993. We performed in Tokyo, Japan in 1993 in a centennial celebration of the birth of Glenn Miller. We performed at the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Conference in Chicago twice, but my favorite of all performances was in 1991 at the Texas Bandmaster Association Conference in my hometown of San Antonio.
I left the military in 1993, and spent one year as Director of Bands at Fork Union Military Academy in Virginia. Our family returned home to San Antonio the following year, and I became assistant editor of Southern Music Company. In 1996 I finished my Masters degree in Instrumental Conducting from the University of Texas at San Antonio, and became the acting Director of Bands at Trinity University in 1996. I received my Texas Teaching Certificate from Southwest Texas State University in December 1997, and taught public school music until appointed in the fall of 1998 Director of Jazz Studies and later Director of Bands at the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith.
After 16 years teaching at UAFS, a year later, I returned home to San Antonio in 2015.