First, here is a little background on myself. I am a professional clarinetist with the US Army, and every one to three years or so I move to a new duty station. I have the pleasure of currently being stationed on the island of Oahu in Hawai'i. One of the many functions of Army bands is to play for the public, instilling both American pride through entertainment, but to also help run public relations portraying the US Army in a favorable light. As such, we often get to perform at local community events, as was the case with this performance I shall speak about. We performed at an event called Eat the Street in Honolulu, which is a monthly "Taste of Honolulu" type event where local food vendors and food trucks (which are extremely prevalent on the island) come out to one central location for the community to sample their items all in one place. Every month there is a new theme; this month was garlic, yum! Food trucks and tents were set up all around an outdoor parking lot in nice 80-degree weather, with a number of tables in the middle, and on one end was a small stage/performing area. The music was meant purely for the entertainment of the considerable crowd of a few thousand as they ate and enjoyed the social time with friends and family.
As performers it was our job to choose music carefully, and we brought our rock band and jazz combo, which at times even performed jointly. The music was a mix of current pop covers, island themed "happy" music, and Mardi Gras style jazz music, all meant to be fun, upbeat, and crowd pleasing. We performed a collective set of about two hours near the beginning of the event in the early evening (4:30-6:30 p.m.) and though certain families or groups may have stopped for awhile to listen to the "show" it was designed more to be background music and not carefully listened to. Though for many events we wear our uniforms, as this was a social informal event, we happily wore Hawaiian shirts, shorts, and flip-flops to fit in and have the audience be more comfortable with us and help us to appear more approachable. Other than the drummer, the bass player, keyboardist, guitar player, vocalists, trumpet, clarinet (me), and sax players all stood and used minimal stands with music. We interacted with the audience to the extent that we could, which usually meant the front man (guitarist) talking to the crowd, trying to ask them questions and get them to raise their hands to questions or shout out some of the favorite food they had been sampling. Other times we interacted musically, with call and response sections they were easy and ripe for audience participation, indicating their moment to sing easy phrases through both verbal cues and physical gesturing. Amplification was used, and there were two individuals from the unit running sound for us, pumping our music through two area speakers to reach a larger portion of the parking lot above the rumble of the crowd. The front man often acknowledged soloists during the show, and vocalists frequently danced during their tunes.
The audience was mostly the general public of huge age differences and social and economic backgrounds, of which only a few actually stayed for any length of time during the performance. The people who hung out to catch the majority of the show were mostly associated with the unit in some way like: family, friends, and our command team. Of the people not associated with the band that stayed, a large portion were family units with children. They either stayed because the children were obviously enjoying the music through excited gesturing and dancing, or because the parents seemed it important for their children to catch a glimpse of "live" music. There were exceptions, like a few groups of adults that would stay and mouth along the words to familiar songs, but they were rare. Applause was rare, but then again many people had their hands full with food so it was not entirely expected. As with all Army and military performances, we already get paid with tax-payer money to do our jobs, so though they had to pay for the food they were partaking in, the entertainment was completely free, and no tickets were required to attend the event either.
This is one of my favorite types of musical performance events. It is casual, fun, low-pressure, and we received some free food vouchers to eat at some vendors when our show was complete (a DJ took over after we packed up). I like it not only as a performer, but it is fun as an audience member too, because they can come and go as they please, enjoy however much of the music they like, be able to talk with the group they are with, eat drink, and move on without any prescribed formal cultural expectations. The music did not "make" the event but it certainly "enhanced" it by accentuating the atmosphere of a fun and casual social event, with all attendees being able to soak up as much or as little of what the event had to offer as they chose. It was almost like having a radio on or having a DJ the whole time as background music, except that it gave the opportunity for those who wanted it to experience something more, giving maximum freedom.
This was also a very new experience for me personally, as this was my first gig with the jazz combo both in this unit, and with any jazz combo in my almost nine years in the Army. I am a classically trained clarinetist, and have always been assigned to "classical" woodwind quintets or similar ensembles, so this was a distinct change from the usual venue of playing at schools, small formal military ceremonies, and balls/breakfasts that were social but want, desire, and require a more sophisticated style of music to be played. I had a lot of fun (especially since this was the first time in nine years that I have played a military gig in civilian clothes) and look forward to more in the future, but this event also demonstrates how the social function of live music in society today is most accepted in this type of social scenario. I cannot imagine many other types/styles of music being regarded better for the eclectic group of people that showed up, and in fact I could easily see how classical music would have been: not heard well enough for people to hear, gotten bad and confused looks from event attendees, and just been inappropriate for the event actually bringing the success of the total event down.
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