LEARNING THE SCORE.

Not long ago, I went out to Malcolm X Shabazz High School, in Newark, New Jersey, to meet Hassan Ralph Williams, the director of the marching band. Upon arriving, I found the corridors empty; the guard at the door pointed me toward the band room, and added that the students were "at the memorial." The memorial, I learned, was for Dawud Roberts, a sixteen-year-old Shabazz football player, who, a few days before, had suffered a fatal stab wound on Johnson Avenue, a few hundred feet from the school. Some students enjoy Williams's class, which meets for three hours every afternoon, because they love playing music; others see it more pragmatically, as a way to get through the day unscathed.

A tall, suave, mellow-voiced man with a mustache and a gleaming shaved pate, Williams is a native of Ozark, Alabama. He served in the Army for twenty-one years, leading marching bands in the 82nd Airborne Division and in the 25th Infantry. He then played jazz in New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere with musicians such as Walter Bishop, Jr., and Woody Shaw. He got into teaching almost by accident, looking for work that would keep him busy between gigs. According to Donald Gatling, a longtime teacher at Shabazz, the school had a lacklustre band when Williams arrived, seventeen years ago. Now the Malcolm X Shabazz Marching Band is considered one of the best in the state, in demand for its pealing brass, explosive drum line, and manic energy.

The band room is decorated with the faces of jazz masters. Duke Ellington holds the place of honor, above the center of the blackboard. There are also placards stating the virtues of discipline, decorum, respect, and attention. One of them says, "The future belongs to those who prepare for it." A corner of the blackboard is posted with some recent student essays on the topic of Mozart's Requiem. "Mozart died while trying to complete this piece about Death," one student wrote. "How ironic." In front of the blackboard are five computers, each equipped with the Sibelius composing program and various tools for teaching notation. Williams encourages the students to learn musical notation at the computer, and to write their own music.

When I walked in, the Shabazz band was rehearsing "The Stars and Stripes Forever." The kids were making a happy noise, but details were getting lost in the rumble. "Listen downward," Williams kept saying, trying to get the upper lines in sync with the lower ones. He wanted them to bring out dance rhythms, such as the habanera, and the songful, Italianate shape of the melodies. "A long time ago, before electricity and TV and radio, people used to dance to this," he said. Two clarinettists responded by jumping out of their seats and dancing around, half gleefully and half sardonically.

Members of the Shabazz band, who range in age from eight to eighteen, work hard. They not only practice from 4 P.M. to 7 P.M. each school day but also play most weekends, either at football games or at public events. In the summer, they go on the road to band camp. Williams does more than beat time; he teaches music history, social history, and black history. (Ninety-five per cent of Shabazz students are African-American.) Sometimes he interrupts his usual attitude of jazz cool with an infusion of military discipline. "This ain't gonna roll," he might roar when there is too much noise in the room. "This isn't happening. You may look around and see a chair coming at your head!" But the drill-sergeant routines last only a few minutes, and the kids aren't afraid to talk back. If Williams asks, "Who's got the melody?," a girl might answer, "You do!" If he drops the name Wynton Marsalis, a few might shout out, "Who dat?" (They know.)

Later in the rehearsal, the piccolo players were struggling with the twirling solos that accompany Sousa's most famous tune, the one to which the words "Three cheers for the red-white-and blue" are sung, or, as Williams prefers to render it, "Be kind to our four-legged friends." Jihad Moore, a tall junior with a crooked smile who wore a blue-and-white basketball jersey with the number 24, was amusing himself by making an imaginary pistol out of his piccolo, holding one end of it with his thumb and gesturing toward the floor, gangsta-style. Williams was trying to get him to concentrate. He'd been telling Jihad that if he got to a certain level with the flute, or mastered a more unusual instrument like the oboe, he might be able to get into college on a scholarship. He sat Jihad next to another player, Kahliah Jordan, and had both students type their parts into the computers, using the Sibelius ...