Welcome everybody to Midday magazine for this Wednesday October 30th, 2024.
Have your host James J. Mailoff here in part two today at 430.
We're going to speak with our friend Trent Minor, Wood County Clerk.
We're going to talk about Wood County and voting in this area in election night.
Right now though, we have in on the phone with us technical Sergeant Tyler Kenmar
and Tyler is here to talk about the US Air Force band in coming to Central Wisconsin.
Tyler, first off, thank you so much for your service and thank you so much for
putting up with my questions and being with us today.
Oh, thanks for having me on.
I want to get into this concert with you Tyler.
This is a fun, awesome, exciting concert.
The United States Air Force Band of Mid-America coming to the Michelson Hall UW-Stevens Point
Arena on November 10th, three o'clock show.
We're going to give you the details of how you can get tickets or reserve tickets
if you'd like coming up.
But before we do that, I'd like to go rewind a little bit and go back and go into the history
of the US Air Force Band of Mid-America.
Do you know much about this Tyler?
Can you get into some of this with us?
You know, to be honest, I'm not sure how far we go back exactly.
But we've had vans in the Army Air Corps preceding the Air Force
back when Major Glenn Miller was heading up the vans.
Kind of making it famous in the jazz world and among pop culture at the time.
And then just transitioning into the Air Force itself.
So the vans have been a long standing part of military tradition.
And we are located at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.
We're just across the river from St. Louis.
And we've been doing just all kinds of music ceremonies,
connecting with people around the world,
probably as long as the Air Force has been around.
In one location or another,
although I couldn't tell you the exact date on Rind Band.
I was formed here at Scott Air Force Base.
Appreciate that.
And that's about what I saw from the history of it too.
I don't think that there's necessarily some exact history.
But it's certainly something that it feels like has always been a part of our Air Force,
is doing something similar to this if not a kind of organized thing like this.
Now the purpose of something like this, Tyler,
can we get into where, why you guys are doing something like an event like this,
and why you do this throughout the country?
Yes. So our mission statement as the Air Force bans is to honor and inspire and connect.
So through music, we honor those that have served and come before us,
inspire future generations of airmen and connect with communities around the world.
So we're mostly used to connect with all these communities,
bring good PR to the Air Force, give back to everyone that has served.
In certain instances, when we are deployed overseas,
or we also have parents stationed across the globe,
making these connections with,
I suppose, allies and enemies alike, trying to open the door.
For our ambassadors to go in and talk with other countries,
and being used as a soft power in that way.
It's a part of our military that we don't get to focus on or talk about nearly all that much.
But it's something that highlights too many of us.
I myself come from a military family.
I know many of our listeners out there do as well.
And for a lot of us that have kind of grew up around a lot of this stuff,
we understand some of the layers and levels to it.
But it's good to explain, get into some of that, and I appreciate it.
It's also noteworthy, I think, the other side of that, Tyler.
And the good PR and the good will it can create for the band members,
for the Air Force itself.
It's not just the people playing, but the people that are supporting this.
Oh, absolutely.
Playing any type of events we may have
various Air Force bases playing for our deployed troops.
Just trying to give back and bring a little slice of home
to those that are in harm's way and give me time.
When it comes to the individuals, the heroes out there that sign up and join our military forces,
you're doing this for so many good reasons.
To be able to add onto those reasons, being able to do something like this,
whether it's entertaining your fellow troops or your communities around our country or anything.
It gives one more added reason, one more added bonus to our service members.
And certainly, as you touched on before, the PR end of this,
where we are always looking for good members to join our services and reach out to them,
certainly even to people that can't join or that are older or maybe have already served.
We want to continue to promote our Air Force and our military, the branches of our military,
and put good will out there in our country.
It's an interesting note that you bring up around the rest of the world, too.
That's something, again, that we don't always get a chance to touch on or think about the importance of that.
That's also some good will and great being created by this band.
Oh, yes, absolutely.
I mean, I see it as our objective that if we are doing our job,
as well as we can, hopefully, we can avoid conflict,
the military is the necessary power we have to defend ourselves and our allies around the world.
But I mean, ideally, if we could create friendly connections with these other nations,
it wouldn't even have to come to that.
Well, see us playing a small part in that.
Well said. Tyler, what's the kind of music that the audience is going to be able to hear on
November 10th when you guys head on over to Steven's point?
Yeah, so we are called the Shades of Blue Jazz Ensemble, and we are a group of 13 active duty
musicians, and we'll be playing kind of an eclectic mix of things for the audiences.
We've got a lot of vocal jazz standards, some selections from the buddy Rich Big Dan's,
a lot of patriotic works, and even jazz arrangement of a popular sting song.
So I'm sure there'll be something for everybody.
Yeah, yeah. What you're talking and I should journalistically mention my favorite style of
music is jazz. I love jazz. But even without that, I do think that it's one of the most universal
like language music. It's something that brings a lot of people together. Most anybody can get into
and good on you guys for adding a little bit to it. That sounds like a lot of fun.
I'm curious, Tyler. Are you in the band? Are you part of the band?
Yeah, so I am the non-commissioned officer in charge of the band, and I also play the drums.
Right on, right? What got you playing drums? Have you been playing it since you were a kid?
Did you get started young? Got started pretty young. I showed up at home one day,
and there happened to be a kind of a cheap drum set in one of our guest rooms and come to find out
at that moment that my dad used to play in his youth professionally, kind of doing a lot of
freelancing work, playing for hotels when that was more popular to have a steady gig doing that
in the six years and seventies. And he started to teach me drums. I thought it was very
interesting. Interesting. And I also was taken a little bit of piano lessons at the time.
So just starting to get into music at the age of nine. And then pretty soon after that, joining
kind of like a middle school band, falling in love with all of that kind of stuff, continuing to play,
drum set, getting into marching bands, and then eventually at some point in high school,
I heard of the concept of someone being a music major, and I had no idea that that was
career profession that you could directly pursue in that way. So I ended up getting my undergrad
and master's degree in music performance, and then shortly after that landing this job with
the Air Force, we have competitive auditions whenever we have openings across our bands and people
send in tapes and then fly out to a live round if they're selected and have this competitive
audition process. And if you are selected, then you are then given a form to take to your recruiter,
to go to basic training, go through the whole bit, but knowing that your full-time job will
be playing music on behalf of military bands. It's quite interesting. And I'm curious,
so Tyler, I mentioned I have a couple of family members that are currently serving and have served,
and my cousin, I remember he's currently enlisted and out there doing great work.
When he was debating about, he wanted to join the service, but he wanted to talk about it with
my grandfather, it was a Marine, and some others, and I happened to be a part of the conversation.
A lot came up, and we talked about a lot of different things, the pluses and minuses,
certainly he ended up obviously joining, but one thing that never came up, getting to play,
he played an instrument, and getting to maybe play that instrument as a part of the military.
I can't imagine when you signed up for this, was this something that you thought of going into
your service, or was a part of your service, or why you joined?
So actually for us, at least in the Air Force, this whole process kind of starts
before you actually sign up. So when we go to basic training, they may ask some people
for the purpose of having a band flight if you've played, you know, band in high school or
something like that, and they'll use that for ceremonies during basic training, but those aren't
necessarily the people that are used for it to be their AFSC or Air Force specialty code.
They're full-time job and purpose in the Air Force to play music once they graduate basic military
training. So, like I was saying, before we kind of put out flyers, advertised with musicians,
unions, all the standard ways that people would maybe come to know about, say, an orchestra
of vacancy or something, and people then apply for these jobs before ever, necessarily even meeting
with a recruiter, and it's only upon when they are selected and guaranteed the job that they will
then meet with a recruiter and join the military. So I actually heard about it from someone else in
the band, came and did a masterclass while I was in college talking about the opportunities to
the Air Force band and the type of stuff that we do, and I just found that's the very interesting
way of going about a music career and allowed me to serve my country with my current skill set
that I had, and it's not very enticing to be able to travel the world, play all these different
styles of music that we're expected to play, anything from rock, pop, classical jazz, our people do
it all, very well-versed musicians that we are fortunate to work with, and just seemed like an
opportunity, so fortunately I was selected and went through basic training and did the whole thing.
And I really appreciate that breakdown, Tyler, not only because I find it interesting, and I think
the audience, well, certainly audience will find it interesting, but as we're talking about this
here, we're also always looking to do a little recruiting, and looking to people out there who
may have a similar background that you do, or similar music, taste, and love music, but all
love their country as well, would like to combine those worlds. It's always good to know, we'll
give you information on how to find out more before we wrap up today. But I don't want to talk about
this great series of concerts that shades of blue, the jazz ensemble is going to be bringing
to our area here in Central Wisconsin. Let's get into this and keep in mind everybody
these are free shows. These are free shows. You can reserve tickets, if you like, tickets are
required, but these all concerts are free and open to the public. You're going to be on November,
Saturday, November 9th at 7 o'clock at Wasa East High School Auditorium in Wasa. I see there
Sunday, November 10th at the Michael Hall at UW and UW Stevens Point at the NOAA Fine Arts Center
over there in Stevens Point at 3 o'clock on Sunday, November 10th. And then Monday, November 730
Green Hill Center of the Arts. You'll be in Whitewater for that one and then wrapping up Wednesday,
November 13th, 7 o'clock at Sun Prairie East Performing Arts Center in Beautiful Sun Prairie,
Wisconsin. You guys are going to be coming through here and making sure that we hear you. We're
going to have plenty of opportunities to hear you guys. Oh, yes, sir. I'm excited. We actually have
an alumni in our band from University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, one of our trombone players. So I
am super excited to hear the feedback at that location, particularly. Yeah, yeah. That's
going to be amazing to be able to come back to your home state and perform. That has to feel
pretty good, I imagine. And I want to talk a little bit about those band members. And what it
takes to do this, because, you know, you don't have to be a musical, you know, to be in an
abandoned band or anything like that, or maybe you had a band in high school like a lot of us,
to know that it takes rehearsing. You got to practice to be able to get these things right.
You got to practice to be able to put on these shows. But with your commitments to the Air Force
and everything, how often are you guys able to rehearse? So our schedules are actually pretty
busy. It's a local base support for various events, funerals, going on tour, that sort of thing.
Schedules are pretty packed. So for any given engagement, like this tour, for example,
Wilberhurst, maybe four or five days, and then go on the road for maybe a week or so at a time.
But then, you know, we're off doing something else since we get back kind of rehearsed for that.
And you said music, new style of music. So the turnovers pretty quick, but we all have a pretty
extensive professional background in music. So everything comes together fairly quickly during
our rehearsal, which is good. Yeah, I can imagine, you know, time is of the essence kind of thing.
But it's still, you know, very impressive to me, to the audience out there, that you guys
are able to pull this off with them. Even if you had a whatever normal rehearsal routine is,
even if you had that going into this, considering all the things on your collective plates,
it's very impressive. And we greatly appreciate it. And really appreciate you joining us. We
have technical Sergeant Tyler Kenemar joining us right now. US Air Force Band, we're talking about
in the great series of shows that they're going to be bringing to your central Wisconsin.
And while you guys are going to get to perform for a really good crowd here in Wisconsin,
we love our music. We are going to give you a good show. The band itself has gotten to perform
for some very impressive people over the years. If we could just kind of as we're getting rid of
the wrap up here, touch on a little bit of the people that I see in this rate that the band
has performed had the distinction of performing for Pope John Paul II before. And President
George W. Bush and William Clinton and George Bush Jr. and senior got both of them in.
Yes, sir. I mean, we were playing for, you know, distinguished people all the time,
very high-level situations. Depending on what it is, I myself have been in for about
nine years now. It's been fortunate enough to play for several presidents, lots of kind of
NFL NBA type games. Yeah, but I mean, just anything and everything, big events,
important people. It's a very great way to serve my country.
Yeah, I can't imagine how humbling and how good it must feel. Is there anyone that stands out
for you in the time you've been doing this? That really, I'm sure all of these are impactful
and meaningful. Is there anyone or two in particular that stand out for you?
It was actually a very small concert that we had at the general of space command at the time
home. They were hosting the, I forget his name, but the National Security Secretary of Japan,
they were visiting Colorado when I was stationed out there. And we just played a small concert for him
and his entourage, kind of doing some selections from their pop world as well as jazz.
And it was, it was my first time really getting to play for, you know, foreign delegates and kind
of make that connection on behalf of the Air Force. And it was just very impactful. And they were
just so appreciative. I think it's really awesome to see when music really transcends those
language barriers and makes that cultural impact. Yeah, that's really cool. Thank you for
sharing that, man. And I couldn't agree more. It's one of the things that we promote around here
and we talk about highly, especially in a time where we're looking to bring people together more
and more. Food, music, these are things that bring people together all the time. And we're going to
be coming together for this great series of shows. As we're wrapping up, Tyler, I touched on this
a little bit earlier. We understand as citizens, we're thankful to everything for our military
and appreciative, especially of these above and beyond things that come from our military and
how much it means to us. But could you, could you, if you can even put into words or try to put
in the words, what this means for you to not just represent your country, not just do something
that you are passionate about, but to be able to entertain people, to be able to give people
another angle, another side to our military and our service workers.
What field is really important to see our military members as more than just the uniform itself.
And I hope that we can do that in some small part by connecting with these audiences.
Having them share their stories with us. I always love hearing stories of people that have
served or answering questions of, you know, perhaps students that are curious to join. It's just
really nice to get out, meet with a community and make that connection beyond the uniform.
Yeah, well said, and appreciate that Tyler. Again, our shades of blue, our fantastic US Air Force
band is going to be coming right here to Central Wisconsin. They have a show Saturday,
November 9th at 7 o'clock at the Wastah East High School Auditorium, then Sunday,
November 10th at 3 o'clock at the Mitchell, Mitchell East and Hall at UW-Stevens Point at their
Fine Arts Center. Monday, November 11th, 730 at Green Hill Center of the Arts, right over there in
Whitewater, and on Wednesday, November 13th, 7 o'clock, the Sun Prairie East Performing Arts Center
in beautiful Sun Prairie. If people want tickets, they want to reserve tickets or get tickets,
how can they do that Tyler? Oh, so you could go to our website. We have set up for this and that is
afbandtix.com. Again, that is afbandtixtix.com. And you should be able to reserve a ticket at any of
these upcoming venues. Perhaps even see some of our other upcoming schedules. I know some
former fashion of one of our ensembles is up in Wisconsin quite a bit. So yeah, look up.
Encourage you to support that everybody and go to that website again and get those tickets and
we will meet you there. Encourage looking forward to it. Safe travels to you in the band Tyler.
Thank you so much not only for your service, but certainly for joining us today. I appreciate the
time. You have a good one out there and have a good run. Thank you, sir. You too. We'll be back with
more Midday Magazine right here at WFHR. We are locally grown radio.