World Drum Corps Hall Of Fame Member Lee Wolf Passes
Lee Wolf, a long time member of the Archer-Epler Musketeers and a member of the World Drum Corps Hall of Fame since 1988, passed away January 4 at the age of 84. A long-time resident of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he was born September 3, 1928.
He was predeceased by his wife Yetta. He is survived by his children Raymond Wolf (Maureen), Stephen Wolf and Renate Price, his sister Mary Hoberg and six grandchildren. Condolences may be sent to Renate Price, 115 Sherman Road, Springfield, PA, 19064.
During his long involvement with the Pennsylvania drum corps community, he was associated with many of the best-known corps of the time. He began his long career as a performer, instructor and arranger by playing first soprano bugle for 10 years with the Osmond Cadets Junior Drum and Bugle Corps in Philadelphia. For the next seven years, he played first soprano with Archer-Epler Musketeers.
He was still a teenager, age 15, when he became the music arranger and instructor with Osmond Cadets. Although he had no formal music education, his arrangements, often featuring moving, smoothly-flowing baritone parts, quickly became recognized and admired throughout the drum corps community.
He became the music arranger and instructor with the Musketeers in 1952, and held the position for 14 years. His strength as an arranger was his natural talent in creating instrument voicing and his ability to adapt all styles of music to drum and bugle corps instrumentation: traditional military marches, ballads, jazz, Dixieland, Broadway show tunes, even rock and roll numbers. Several of his proteges are also World Drum Corps Hall of Fame members, including the late Bob Adair and Rip Bernert.
Other corps that he taught or arranged for include Osmond Post Cadets, Vasella Musketeers, St. Vincent’s Cadets, Yearsley Cadets and Blessed Sacrament Golden Knights.
Since its founding in 1976 by the late Vince Bruni of Rochester, New York, membership in the World Drum Corps Hall of Fame has grown from six charter members to 459 regular and associate members from the United States and Canada, who have contributed to the activity across North America, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the Middle East, South Africa, Japan and Australia.
The World Drum Corps Hall of Fame is a non-profit organization honoring those individuals who have contributed significantly over many years to the development and continuing excellence drum and bugle corps activity. The organization also seeks to preserve the history of the drum and bugle corps movement in North America by selecting a noteworthy junior and all age (senior) corps of the decade.
For more information about the World Drum Corps Hall of Fame, visit the website at www.worlddrumcorpshof.org/
