Appreciation: Thomas Powell Knox, 1937-2004

MGySgt. Thomas Powell Knox, chief composer and arranger for the United States Marine Band for 16 years until his retirement in 1985, died unexpectedly in Columbia, S.C., on May 11. He was 66. Knox was traveling by train from Florida, where he lived, to Washington, D.C. when he fell ill.

Knox was one of the best-known contemporary composers and arrangers of music for concert band and wind ensembles. Although he wrote primarily for the Marine Band - the nation's oldest musical organization, claimed by Thomas Jefferson as "the President's own band" --- Knox's music had wide influence.

"He really was responsible - both through his original compositions and through his arranging - for creating a lot of the sound of the Marine Band," said Col. Timothy W. Foley, the band's current director. "Other people heard that and wanted to emulate it. One of the ways to do that was by going to Tom's music and playing it as well. He had a very profound influence on band music in the latter part of the 20th century."

Most Americans have heard Knox's music, which is played on some of the nation's most important civic occasions. It was often based on American hymns, folk music and patriotic tunes.

Few Marine Band concerts are without at least one piece by Knox, and often there are several. "We'll continue to play Tom Knox as long as there's a Marine Band," Foley said.

Knox's "God of Our Fathers" --- variations on a Methodist hymn tune of that name --- was commissioned for President Ronald Reagan's first inaugural in 1981. By tradition the piece has been played at every presidential inauguration since, becoming the closest thing America has to a national hymn.

The piece closed a congressional prayer vigil service in the Capitol rotunda the day after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Similarly, Knox's American Hymn Variants - "And Grace Shall Lead Me Home" was featured at a memorial concert in Oklahoma City honoring the victims of the federal building bombing there.

Knox's "Sea Songs" commemorates the 350th anniversary of the founding of Boston. It was premiered there in 1980, and has since been played by many bands around the world. Another perennial favorite is "American Pageant," commissioned for President Richard Nixon's first inaugural.

Frederick Fennell, the dean of American band music, said Knox had "a singular position among composers of wind band music in the United States." Fennell is founder of the Eastman Wind Ensemble, laureate conductor of the Tokyo Kosei Wind Ensemble and principal guest conductor of the Dallas Wind Symphony. "Tom had a style definitely of his own," Fennell said. "It was a blend of band and symphonic music."

The final scene of the movie All the President's Men, based on the Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein book on the Watergate affair, contains a sample of Knox's music. As Woodward/Robert Redford and Bernstein/Dustin Hoffman write another installment of The Washington Post Watergate series, a television above their heads shows Nixon's second inaugural, which opened with an elaborate fanfare commissioned by the President for the occasion.

The Marine Band's library contains 263 Thomas Knox arrangements for concert band, brass choir, string orchestra, wind ensembles, chorus and solo voice, and dance band. He also wrote 42 original works, including a symphony for concert band.

"He had this wonderful ability to start with something very small, just a fragment of the melody or part of a chord, just enough to pique your curiosity, and then he takes his time," said Loras John Schissel cq, senior musicologist at the Library of Congress.

"Like a good novel it takes awhile before all the pieces come together," Schissel said. "What makes Tom so good is that he makes it worth the wait. There's a great payoff at the end." Schissel often programs Knox compositions and arrangements for the Band of the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, which he conducts, and the Virginia Grand Military Band, which he founded.

Chief Warrant Officer Jim Ford, who administers 12 Marine Corps fleet bands from the Marine base at Quantico, Virginia, said Knox's arrangements are part of daily military rituals around the world. His brass choir setting of "Taps and Retreat," for instance, is often played at funerals and flag-lowering ceremonies.

"Tom's one of the best there ever was," Ford said. "His treatments were always fresh and unique, always so engaging to listen to and to play. He really got the true spirit and emotion of each selection he took on. When he did it, it was the definitive version."

Knox was born in Danville, Illinois, on December 24, 1937. His parents were Albert L. Knox, who published a daily newspaper, and Ruth Powell Knox. Knox heard the U.S. Marine Band on tour when he was a boy and decided he wanted to play in the band. He studied trumpet and cornet with Adolph Herseth, principal trumpet of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and majored in music at the University of Illinois. He joined the Marine Band in 1961.

According to Schissel, John Philip Sousa, the legendary Marine Band conductor, considered the University of Illinois the best place to study concert band composition, arranging and conducting. Sousa willed his extensive band music library to the University of Illinois music department.

"Tom was a descendent of that tradition of Sousa's arranging and composing for concert band," Schissel said. "It comes full circle, with Tom going to Sousa's band."

Knox lived on Capitol Hill until his retirement in 1985, in a house across the street from the Marine Corps commandant's residence. At the time of his death he lived in Mount Dora, Florida.

Knox maintained close ties with the band until his death. "Once you put on that red coat, you never really take it off," he often said, referring to the band's striking concert dress uniform.

He leaves a brother, Richard, of Boston. Interment of Knox's ashes will be in the Congressional Cemetery, where Sousa is buried, at a date to be determined.