Among my favorite people in Gettysburg is John William Jones. You perhaps know him as “Buzz.” I didn’t know his given name was John William until he gave me a book titled, “Gettysburg Replies: The World Responds to Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address” (Lyons Press, 2015). As explained on the book jacket, Lincoln’s Presidential Library Foundation had “challenged presidents, judges, historians, filmmakers, poets, actors, and others to craft 272 words of their own to celebrate Lincoln, the Gettysburg Address, or a related topic that stirs their particular passion.” Of more than a thousand submissions, one hundred were selected for the book, including those of Presidents Carter, Clinton, both Georges Bushes and Barack Obama; Steven Spielberg, Colin Powell, Sandra Day O’Connor, Ken Burns, Lech Walesa and John William Jones, aka Buzz, whose 272-word contribution is titled “Words to Music.”
For any who may not know Buzz Jones, he is a native of Bryn Mawr, a fourth-generation Welsh American with a doctorate from Temple University and served as the director of bands at Gettysburg College from 1989-2002, chair of the music department from 1999-2005 and director of the Sunderman Conservatory of Music from 2006-2008. Since retiring from the college in 2017, Jones is no less prominent on the contemporary Gettysburg music scene. His many projects including the Buzz Jones Jazz Quintet, him driving the sound on bass guitar, and the Buzz Jones Big Band. (As a veteran bassologist of the garage band-era, I always wanted to have my name on a group: Bruce Davis & The Militant Methodists being one of a hundred variations come up with over the years.)
Back to “Gettysburg Replies.” I particularly appreciated these words of President George W. Bush: “Abraham Lincoln firmly believed that all men are created equal under God. His position was not always popular, but it was right.” For the Lincoln bicentennial in 2009 (the former president was born in 1809), Buzz had gleaned words from letters and speeches dating back to Lincoln’s days as a prairie lawyer and set them to music of Jones’ own composition, with samplings of tunes popular in the mid-19th century. As told by Buzz Jones, Lincoln’s “letters and poetry are musical by nature and were easy to set to music…” “Easy” being a highly relative term. The result was titled “’For the People,’ an oratorio for brass band, soprano, tenor, bass-baritone, and woodwind octet,” which, I subsequently learned, could be viewed in its entirety on YouTube.
Full disclosure: I wasn’t entirely sure what an oratorio was, but as it seemed likely to have more than the garage band norm of three chords, I figured I’d watch a few minutes, just to say I did, only to find myself wholly hooked. While our 16th president didn’t have any more musical training than me, Jones rightly notes, “We know that Lincoln loved music. Attending concerts and opera brought him much pleasure during four tumultuous years in office and he often invited traveling musicians to perform at the White House.” Buzz continues, “One pervasive thought was always with me as I composed the oratorio: would President and Mrs. Lincoln enjoy the music as part of an evening’s entertainment?”
My mind’s eye sees Abraham and Mary Todd in the front row of the Majestic Theatre, Nov.19, 2009. The commander-in-chief of the Union Army might have been puzzled that Confederate General George Pickett was serving as the narrator, it perhaps being explained to him that actor Stephen Lang had only played Pickett in the movie and was decidedly not representing the character here. The Great Emancipator would have surely been gratified to hear a black man (baritone Roosevelt Andre, whose Broadway credits include “Showboat,” itself informed by the music of Lincoln favorite Stephen Foster) lift the president’s words as a spiritual anthem of freedom. Laughter came easy to Abe Lincoln, and he might have slapped his knee in delight at a rally song with the lyric, “That’s what’s the matter/The rebels have to scatter; We’ll make them flee by land and sea/And that’s what’s the matter!” We know Mary Todd liked to promenade, and if Abraham wouldn’t join her when the Victorian dance ensemble took the floor, Buzz himself might have been the first lady’s partner.
As a self-taught man whose education was primarily gained through books, we can be certain Abraham Lincoln would have devoured “Gettysburg Replies.” What might have most impressed him about Barack Obama’s “reply” was that the 44th president makes no mention of himself as the first African-American to hold the office, but instead attests, “it is through the accumulated toil and sacrifice of ordinary men and women—those like the soldiers who consecrated that battlefield—that this country is built, and freedom preserved.” Reading Colin Powell’s essay, Lincoln might have felt vindicated about putting black men in blue uniforms, even thinking, “I wish I’d had this guy instead of George McClellan.” He would have surely regretted that Sandra Day O’Connor wasn’t on his Supreme Court in place of Roger Taney, Judge O’Connor confessing, “To this day, the Gettysburg Address leaves me speechless.” Lincoln Library Foundation Executive Director Carla Knorowski writes of the importance of his last-minute insertion of “under God” into the Gettysburg Address: “Separation of church and state does not mean separating ourselves from our spiritually enriched history—our collective national soul,” a theme Buzz himself includes in the oratorio, which, to repeat, can been seen by entering “For the People—Oratorio” into your search engine.
Gettysburg continues to reply through many and various means, including our Civil War Round Table, which gathers each month to discuss events and issues for which Lincoln himself gave “the last full measure of devotion.” Our next meeting is Thursday, Jan. 26 at 7 p.m. at Gettysburg United Methodist, located at 30 W. High St in Gettysburg. Visitors are always welcome. For more information, check out our website, http://www.cwrtgettysburg.org.
