Adding 'a little pep and ginger'

During the 75 years the Northwestern University Marching Band has been under the supervision of the School of Music, the ensemble has performed in the 1949 and 1996 Rose Bowl games in Pasadena and the 2000 Alamo Bowl in San Antonio.

The enthusiastic group has also delighted millions of students, alumni and spectators with their rousing music, while cheering our football teams to victory.

Marching band history can be traced back even further than 1926. The first University-sanctioned marching band was organized in 1911. University officials asked Milton Cruse, a doctor on the Dental School faculty who had organized a Dental School orchestra, to start a band, in an attempt to "add a little pep and ginger during the football games." It was reported that "his efforts attracted 21 men who suited up in new uniforms provided by the University to perform at the season’s first game" (against the University of Chicago). The "Pep Band" also played during basketball games.

Band member Theodore C. Van Etten, a Pharmacy School student on the Chicago campus, wrote the words and music of "Go U Northwestern," the University’s "fight song" in 1912. Until then, the band only performed collegiate songs from other universities and Van Etten decided it was time for a change.

By 1916, band members had elected a student committee that managed the group and oversaw its musical direction. By 1920, the year that faculty member Osborne McConathy was appointed to chair the Band Committee, the band had 80 members,

In 1922, under student director Edward Meltzer, the band accompanied the football team on out-of-town trips and performed at the Indianapolis Speedway races. A year later, the band had grown to 100 members and also began to present concerts throughout the year.

After Peter Christian Lutkin, the first dean of the School of Music (1891-1928), placed the band under the supervision of the School of Music in 1926, Glenn Cliffe Bainum, an innovator in marching band formations, was appointed the first full-time band director. At the time, band membership had dwindled to 17 men. By the following year, Bainum had expanded the band to 80 members -- providing enough uniformed bodies to impressively spell out "HELLO" on the football field during the first game of the season.

In the early 1940s, Harold Finch, then director of bands at Highland Park High School, took charge of the University band during the World War II years when Bainum was serving in the military. Women students performed with the band at the time because so many men were defending their country.

The marching band was disbanded in 1945 because of lack of personnel. It wasn’t until the fall of 1947 that the band was revived once again under Bainum’s direction. Band members proudly made their appearance dressed in new blue-and-gray uniforms that year.

When Bainum became ill, John Paynter became acting director of bands in 1950-51, while working toward his master’s degree in theory and composition at Northwestern. When Bainum died, he was succeeded by Paynter in 1953. Under Paynter’s leadership, women were re-admitted as band members in 1971.

In the fall of 1995, Wildcat Marching Band members received new uniforms that were first worn during their 1996 Rose Bowl game appearance. The black, purple and white uniforms cost $350 each and were funded by private donations.

Paynter, who had performed with the band during the 1949 Rose Bowl, accompanied the band to the 1996 Rose Bowl. He died a few weeks later. Alumna Mallory Thompson, who had studied conducting with Paynter, was named director of bands later that year, a position that she continues to hold.

The current Northwestern Wildcat Marching Band is composed of 155 brass and woodwind instrumentalists, percussionists and a Color Guard. Led by Thompson and Daniel J. Farris, director of athletic bands, the band performs pre-game and halftime drills at each home football game and takes one trip each season to a road game. The band occasionally makes special appearances in the Chicago area.

The Pep Band, which first performed in 1911, is currently composed of 60 band members, and performs at men’s and women’s basketball home games at Welsh-Ryan Arena and travels with the team to post-season tournaments.

About 520 former loyal members from all of the University’s band programs belong to NUMBALUMS (Northwestern University Marching Band Alumni), a group that was informally organized by Paynter in 1972, and formally organized in 1999. You can hear many of them perform during Homecoming games.