Alumni Gazette

‘Period Rush’

“It’s like you’re transported back in time.”

That’ what Jeff Stockham ’82E (MM) experiences when he performs with his Civil War–era ensemble, the Excelsior Cornet Band.

“Sometimes, if there are no modern distractions like planes flying overhead, and you close your eyes, you get what’s called a 𔄀period rush,’” he says.

Stockham, who studied French horn at the Eastman School of Music, is a freelance trumpet player by trade, but for the past two years, he has been performing music from the mid–1800s on antique instruments from the same era.

“I started picking up these instruments at garage sales, flea markets, and music stores,” Stockham says.

With help from Civil War reenactment groups, the band outfitted themselves with authentic Yankee militia uniforms, swords, and even eyewear—the frames holding the band members’ prescription lenses are from the 1800s—to complement the original instruments.

Although Stockham plays with the Excelsior Cornet Band, and occasionally with the Federal City Brass Band based in Baltimore, he is not trapped in the past. He also teaches jazz trumpet at Hamilton College and Colgate University, plays in Thelonious Monk Jr.’s band, Monk on Monk, and has toured with the road company of Les Miserables.

It’s not hard to make the transition from brass band to jazz to stage music, he says. What’s difficult is switching from modern instruments to historic ones.

“You can tune those old instruments but not as much as a modern instrument,” Stockham says. “You have to ‘lip it into tune.’ Some part of it will always be out of tune, and it’s up to the musician to get it to play as in tune as possible.”

But it’s worth it, he says, to make the experience as authentic as possible.

“And every day is Halloween,” he says. “We get to dress up and have fun. What more could you ask for?”