Quintet Music for Honor Flights

[Arbanator]

My brass quintet occasionally plays for the arrival of honor flights bringing veterans to the Washington, D.C. area for a weekend. Of course arrangements of patriotic chestnuts are available, and it’s not too hard to find arrangements of WWII era popular music. Lately, though, the number of WWII veterans has been declining, and the flights have been extended to veterans of the Korean and Vietnam wars and other actions. I like to play pieces that provide a little nostalgia for the eras in which these guys served, but I’m having a hard time finding anything for the Korean era (1950-53) and for Vietnam, say 1965-75, anything beyond arrangements of Beatles tunes. Any ideas?

[Shaft]

Culture music and war propaganda was different after the two world wars. Finding direct musical selections for wars after that may be tricky. Part of my reasoning is that the type of music that communities were listening to was different. Rock was more prevalent and times were a bit different than people getting together and swing dancing to Bugle Boy or Tommy Dorsey selections at a big scale.

Just my initial thoughts while considering your search.
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[Arbanator]

Right. I think that's a possibly unsurmountable problem. But even setting that aside, it seems that the demise of the big swing bands is also manifested in a lack of quintet arrangements for the later pop repertoire. Maybe the change in typical instrumentation is a similarly large barrier.