Little, big horn still plays

By JENNIFER BRUMMETT
Staff Writer

Steve Charpié immediately had a rapt audience when he rolled into West T. Hill Community Theatre around 4:15 p.m. Thursday for the Chautauqua Tea performance. Some in the audience had seen him perform with an old and historic instrument here with the California Gold Rush Band a few years ago.

This year, Charpié is traveling with The New Custer Brass Band and is playing another very old instrument: The E-flat cornet that General George Armstrong Custer's bandmaster, Felix Vinatieri, played. This year marks the 125th anniversary of the death of Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn.

The near-capacity audience gasped and "wowed" when Charpié was playing Vinatieri's instrument. He told them that the instrument likely would not be played again after the Great American Brass Band Festival this weekend.

Charpié and The New Custer Brass Band started off the program playing "The Star-Spangled Banner." Everyone in the audience stood for the 1860s arrangement of the piece, which seemed somehow dissimilar to the traditional "The Star-Spangled Banner." The arrangement had quirks and changes not always heard in 21st Century renditions of the national anthem.

"You just heard an 1860s arrangement of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' by The New Custer Brass Band," Charpié told the audience. "And some of you are thinking, 'I didn't know there was an Old Custer Brass Band.'"

Charpié talked about Vinatieri, who loved the Dakota territories and settled around a small town called Yankton. Custer's regiment formed a camp around Yankton.

Custer, a music-lover, attended balls around South Dakota. It was at one of these parties that he heard Vinatieri play, and so enjoyed the bandmaster's musical arrangements that he asked him to be the 7th Cavalry's bandmaster. Custer wanted the band to be at the Battle of Little Big Horn, but at the last minute the band's horses were taken away, and the band did not go to the battle, which also has been called "Custer's Last Stand."

The band and Charpié then played two different arrangements of "Listen to the Mockingbird." The first was the 27th North Carolina band arrangement; the second, a Vinatieri arrangement. The audience tapped their toes and bobbed their heads to the rhythm of the music. The band also played two different arrangements of "Hail to the Chief" -- a Vinatieri version and a contemporary version.

The New Custer Brass Band and Charpié finished out the afternoon program with "The Fierkraker's Polka."

"Felix Vinatieri wrote in English but made up spellings," Charpié said as he spelled out "firecracker" as the bandmaster wrote it.

After the band finished playing, Danville-Boyle County Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director Kay Berggren presented Charpié with a certificate from Governor Paul Patton's office making him a Kentucky Colonel.

"This is really a treasure to me," said the clearly surprised Charpié. "I'm absolutely moved."