Kazoo Anyone?: January 2011

Antique map showing Barnstable Village's location .

Barnstable Village is located on Cape Cod not far from where the Pilgrims originally landed in November, 1620. These events are well described in Nathaniel Philbrick's novel Mayflower. The quaint village is bisected by Main Street with Barnstable Harbor on its northside, bounded by the Barnstable County Court House on one end and by the Phinney's Lane intersection on the other featuring the village's only traffic light. Life in Barnstable Village is immortalized in a short story by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, a village resident for many years.

One of year's big events is the Fourth of July Parade having been held for the past 40 years. Your writer volunteered to be on the July 4th parade organizing committee taking on the task of raising funds for the event which features free food and entertainment for the citizenry. In one of the first committee meetings, the topic of marching bands came up. The booming, patriotic sounds of John Philip Sousa opuses as shown in this YouTube video were deemed essential to the parade's success.

But, given the current economic hard times and cutbacks in educational funding by our state's authorities, the local high school music teacher mentioned that a substantial fee would need to be charged to offset the costs of bringing in the high school marching band. Somehow out of nowhere, I heard myself saying "Well, let's do a Kazoo Marching Band instead." After a bit of snickering, the chairperson suggested I go out and do my

duty as chief fund raiser so we could afford to hire the high school.

Winning Image by Kate Walls.

I am pleased to say local merchants and citizens were very generous in their donations. And with the sales of merchandise featuring an image created by local artist, Kate Walls, the winner of a competition held by the Cape Cod Art Association, we were indeed able to hire two high school bands in addition to a bag pipe group as well.

But the musical highlight (imho) of the 2010 Barnstable Village/West Barnstable Village Fourth of July Parade event was the inaugural appearance of the Edward Jones Kazoo Marching Band (EJKMB).

Joe Baer Magnant

The creation of the EJKMB took place without major incident. To start, local musician and music teacher, Joe Baer Magnant,
was recruited as musical director.

Next, local music teachers, music schools, parents, and local bon-vivants were invited to participate in the marching band. The Barnstable Patriot, a local newspaper, provided coverage mentioning the formation of the band and helped in recruiting members.

Created by Bad Racket Design

A design firm was hired to create a logo, kazoos and tee shirt uniforms were purchased all in anticipation of the impending celebration of our nation's independence.

Ann Canedy, Town Councilor, records the action

On the morning of the Parade, band members assembled to try out their new kazoos, get uniformed and review the Music Program.

Steve Whitmore does a resonance test

John Temple waves the Music Program

The parade was kicked off by members of the organizing committee.

Ted and Grand Kids

Then came the Grand Marshall, the president of a local organization dedicated to the perservation of Barnstable Harbor. Once the site of a great fleet of China merchant vessels including one captained by William Sturgis, the namesake of the village's Sturgis Library housed in a building constructed in 1644 for the Reverend John Lothrop, founder of Barnstable. The house which forms the original part of the Library is the oldest building housing a public library in the United States.

Next, the EJKMB made its presence felt. Noted the musical director's use of a cardboard box as a snare to keep everyone in perfect formation and step. A fun time was had by all.