A historic collection of music that inspired a nation and it's President, all performed by the extraordinary musician's of our nation's military bands, orchestras and ensembles with a special track featuring narration by legendary CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite.

Always Ready is the English translation of Semper Paratus, the U.S. Coast Guard motto. +On this album, The U.S. Coast Guard Band performs a wide variety of patriotic classics, some unique to their specific military branch. +This disc also provides timeless patriotic songs like America the Beautiful, marches like The Thunderer and concert works like Charles Ives’ iconic Variations on “America.” +Each of the nineteen tracks offers something different, while still maintaining the band’s core sound.

United States Marine Band: Great Marches Not by John Philip

"A concert recording celebrating the United States Army Blues Jazz Ensemble's 25th anniversary. Features The New York Voices vocal quartet A program consisting mainly of American standards, including Benny Goodman's “Air Mail Special”, Hoagy Carmichael's “Star Dust” and George Gershwin's “Summertime”. Since its 1972 founding, this ensemble has backed both jazz legends and show business stalwarts."

Includes traditional march(es). Ensemble: Regimental Band of the Coldstream Guards. Conductor: Trevor Le M. Sharpe.

Just for fun, try playing this CD as a quiz for a musically knowledgeable friend. You can give one hint: the composer is well known. As the suite from the operetta The Bride Elect proceeds, you'll probably get guesses like Johann Strauss (during the opening waltz), Offenbach, or Victor Herbert. But when the concluding number, a march, arrives, the composer will be obvious. Sousa's operettas, if one judges from these orchestral selections, aren't highly original or even outstandingly tuneful. But they are good light entertainment, especially as played by this crack group of Slovak players under the direction of Sousa expert Keith Brion. Naxos's recording is as crisp and clear as the orchestral playing.

Includes Stars and Stripes Forever (live); Sound Off; the Thunderer March; the Gallant Seventh; the Man Behind the Gun; By the Light of the Polar Star; Beneath the Southern Cross, and more.

UNITED STATES AIR FORCE AIRMEN OF NOTE: Airmen of Note (The)

BAND OF THE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE RESERVE JAZZ ENSEMBLE: S

UNITED STATES ARMY FIELD BAND JAZZ AMBASSADORS: Boogie Woogi

Various types of march are featured on this CD. The military march gets a hearing through one of the best known of them all, "Colonel Bogey," the only slightly-lesser known "The New Colonial," and, for good measure, a brilliant arrangement for brass band by Gordon Langford of Under the Double Eagle. This is a wide range of marches guaranteed to bring delight to listeners of all musical tastes.

Includes air force medley by various composers. Ensembles: United States Air Force Band, United States Air Force Singing Sergeants.
Includes armed forces medley by various composers. Ensembles: United States Air Force Band, United States Air Force Singing Sergeants.
Includes work(s) by George M. Cohan. Ensemble: United States Air Force Band.

The U.S. Marine Band, "The President's Own," has performed for every presidential inauguration since Thomas Jefferson. From the earliest days of the Nation, the Marine Band's primary mission has been to provide music for the President of the United States. Whether performing for South Lawn arrival ceremonies, State dinners, receptions or accompanying famous entertainers, Marine musicians appear at the Executive Mansion more than 200 times annually.

Liberty and the freedom to pursue happiness are blessings enjoyed by every citizen of the United States. This album, "The Blessings of Liberty", is a collection of inspirational music dedicated to the men and women who have fought and died to preserve these liberties.

PRESIDENT'S OWN UNITED STATES MARINE BAND: Uncommon Valor

This recording celebrates Sousa's important early associations with dance and the music theatre. Picture a young John Philip Sousa, a tiny young man aged eleven, confidently standing in front of a group of much older musicians, playing his violin in the style of the famous Strauss and leading his own popular dance orchestra as Washington's society swirls and dances in front of him. It is impossible to overestimate the effect this interaction of the young man, his orchestra and the dancers was to have on the later Sousa -the composer to be. He was once quoted as saying, "I want my marches to make a man with a wooden leg stand up and dance." The dance never left him. Dancing rhythms for ever permeated his compositions, marches and dances alike. A young Dance Prince begat the March King. Soon also, his musical activities brought him to the theatre, where he began to experience the close and often raucous give and take of audience and performer that constituted the popular side of nineteenth century American theatre and early vaudeville. By the age of 21 he was the leader, arranger and concert master of the orchestra at Ford's Theatre in Washington. Later he led the Chestnut Street Theatre Orchestra in Philadelphia. Once again the magical chemistry of music and rhythm, as it reaches for audiences, became central to the composer's thinking. While many of the dances found here stem from this early period of Sousa's life, these initial encounters with the infectiousness of music and how it infuses dancers and listeners never left him. Throughout his long and sparkling career he continued to write music for each new craze: waltzes, gallops, two-steps, gavottes, tangos, cakewalks, rags, polkas, marches of course, and sometimes even a foxtrot or two.