Thirty-five years later, the October 17, 1955 issue of Sports Illustrated pictured on its cover that year's Princeton band -- attired in orange-and-black plaid blazers, gray flannel trousers, white shoes, and straw hats -- to illustrate a typical Princeton football Saturday ``filled with the color of autumn and the noise of Princeton's highly polished [seventy-six piece] brass band'' making ``the welkin ring for Old Nassau.''
Around the same time, the band, whose numbers eventually topped a hundred, introduced satirical half-time shows and began performing, in small but lively groups, at home basketball and hockey games.
In 1951, some of the marching band's more accomplished members formed a concert band, whose winter concerts in McCarter Theatre and spring concerts on the steps of Nassau Hall became Princeton traditions. Three years later, Princeton joined Yale in a New York concert (described as not ``half bad'' by a New York Times music critic, who admitted to being an ex-Harvard bandsman), and in May 1971 celebrated the University Band's fiftieth season in a joint performance with Harvard at Lincoln Center. During the Spring Recess of 1975, the concert band toured California, bringing its music to West Coast alumni and friends, from San Diego to San Francisco.
In 1969, the marching and concert bands were among the first Princeton organizations to benefit from the talents of the newly arrived women students. In recent years, the marching band has led the annual Alumni Parade, and the concert band has played the music for the Commencement procession.
Conductors of the University Band have included Richard F. Goldman, 1951 to 1955; Robert L. Leist, from 1955 to 1971; and since 1971, David Uber.