Scan the obituaries in The Syncopated Times and you will quickly realize just how fast we are losing veterans of WWII and Korea. Service during that time period seemed almost universal, everybody played their part. Perhaps not surprisingly many of the men we remember in The Final Chorus played their part in military bands before returning home and pursuing lives entwined with jazz.
Richard Burt was one of these men. He was studying at Brigham Young University when the news of Pearl Harbor changed everything. He was inducted into the military on April 6, 1943, at Fort Douglas, and was sent to Camp Kearns for basic training, where he was recruited into the band as a trumpet player. From there it was first to Santa Ana Army Air Base and then March Field near Riverside, California. He describes March Field in a 1980s recording:
“March Field was the ultimate in service bands. It had a rich mixture of marching and parades and a great deal of dance work. Three-fourths of the March Field band had been professionals in Hollywood recording industry and motion picture industry also, or they were members of nationally-known big swing bands.”
After some months at March Field, so tha
