Phantom Regiment

The Phantom Regiment Drum and Bugle Corps is a World Class competitive junior drum and bugle corps based in Rockford, Illinois.

The first two drum and bugle corps in the Rockford, Illinois, area were sponsored by VFW Post 342 and American Legion Post 62. Both corps' members were men who were both veterans and members of the posts. The Rockford area has had several drum corps since that time, but the most successful by far has been the Phantom Regiment (aka Phantom, aka The Regiment).

Formed in 1956 by a group of VFW 342 members, under the direction of Alex Haddad, the corps was provisionally named the Rockford Rangers with all-boy drums and bugles sections and an all-girl color guard to be named the Rangerettes. However, when many of the charter members were impressed by the Stetson D. Richmond recording of the Syracuse Brigadiers performing the 1952 Leroy Anderson composition "The Phantom Regiment," the corps' name was changed before the unit made its debut, and the all-girl color guard was labelled the Phantomettes.

While the corps was in its developmental stages, a substantial emphasis was placed on the competitive guard aspect of the activity. Almost overnight, both the Phantomettes and a corps-sponsored all-boy color guard called the Raiders were competitively successful.

The drum and bugle corps struggled competitivelyuntil the corps bought a set of high quality bugles from the Commonwealth Edison Drum and Bugle Corps in 1962. A new brass arranger also sped the growth process. Also in 1962, the Phantom Regiment Cadets feeder corps was formed and received the old set of bugles.

Despite the Phantomettes having placed second at the 1962 color guard national championships, the 1963 Regiment was an all-male corps, but scores fell from the previous season. The Phantomettes returned in 1964 and, after a very successful recruiting drive, the Phantom Regiment, dressed in new uniforms, had its most successful year to date, while the Phantomettes were memorialized on the City of Rockford's vehicle registration stickers.

Just as it looked as if the Regiment was on its way to becoming a championship-caliber corps, on August 21, 1964, Regimental Hall, the corps' home was badly damaged by a fire. The organization was forced to sell its instruments and those new uniforms to pay off some of its debts. The Phantom Regiment was inactive for the next three seasons.

A new board of directors, made up of former members and staff of the original corps, reorganized and incorporated the Phantom Regiment on September 11, 1967. Included was the mission statement: "To organize, maintain, and operate a musical marching unit, band, color guard, and related activities, and in general, promote and encourage drum and bugle corps activities, parades, concerts, contests, and to further the musical talents and interests of young persons."

The reorganized Phantom Regiment began its first season in three years as a small corps that signed its first roster on Jan. 10, 1968. There were 28 members.

The first season for the reborn corps included many parades and a few contests. The corps uniform included black pants with a red windbreaker and a black and white vertical stripe on the left side of the windbreaker. The equipment truck was a red step van, the only vehicle the corps owned. In that first year of the corps' return, perhaps the corps' greatest asset was its new musical arranger, Phantom Regiment alumnus and future DCI Hall of Fame member, Jim Wren, who would go on to arrange the unit's brass music for the next 32 years.

As the years passed, the number of contests grew, the distance traveled in the tour increased, and the Phantom Regiment began to creep up the ladder of drum corps success.

In 1970, the corps was able to put the members in actual uniforms for the first time since the fire. These were cadet-style uniforms with a jacket that featured a diagonal sash of red dividing the black right side from the white left side and black pants with a white stripe. The uniforms were accented by white buck shoes and shakos with 12-inch plumes. That 1980 corps included 40 horns, 14 drums, 24 color guard, 10 rifles, and one drum major, for a total of 89 members.

By 1971, the first hints of Phantom's ultimate t rademark classical style were beginning to appear, as Wren started adding classical music pieces to the usual pop music that most corps were playing.

Legend has it that a sign of the corps' increased confidence was that, on Friday, August 13th, 1971, all of the corps' buses ran out of fuel; the equipment truck caught fire, not just once, but twice; yet the corps went out and won that night's contest.

Before Drum Corps International (DCI) was founded in 1972, the Phantom Regiment, like most corps of the time, was strictly a local organization with members and staff from Rockford and its surrounding communities. Travel to contests was generally limited to no more than a few hours of driving, with an immediate return home after the show. The only "National" competition Phantom had ever entered before 1972 was the 1964 VFW championships in Cleveland. In 1972, Phantom Regiment attended the first DCI World Championships in Whitewater, Wisconsin. Even that was a short trip, since Whitewater is only a bit over 50 miles north of Rockford.

As the corps moved into the realm of touring corps in 1972, it also established the new role of "program coordinator" to oversee the staff and the creative design process. The position was filled by Phantom Regiment charter member Dr. Daniel Richardson, who would hold the job for all but two of the next twenty years. He would also take on nearly every other job in the organization at one time or another through 2017. "Dr. Dan" was elected to the DCI Hall of Fame in 2011 for his efforts.

Phantom Regiment placed 23rd among the 39 corps at that first DCI Championships. Through 2017, the Regiment remains one of only five corps to have attended DCI every year.

During the fall and winter before the 1974 season, every member of the corps took individual marching and brass lessons. It was to be the first year that Phantom played an all-classical music program. It was also the first time the Regiment went on an actual "tour" to contests in Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts en route to the DCI Championships in Ithaca, New York. With a corps marching the then-maximum 128 members, Phantom Regiment was beating many of the activity's traditional powers and was earning a reputation as a new powerhouse on the scene. Many drum corps fans were shocked when Phantom placed 8th in semifinals. In its first DCI Finals, the corps finished 11th. They have been a fixture in the DCI top 12 ever since.

In the fall of 1974, Phantom Regiment debuted a new uniform that would give the corps its long-term identity: long white jackets with a black sash, a two-colored cape with red on the inside and black on the outside, black pants, and the special element that remains today: the pith helmet.

The remainder of the 1970s would be years of rapid advancement for the Regiment as the corps matured to become a contender for the DCI crown. In 1975, the corps placed 10th, and in 1976, it placed fourth. Then, in 1977, 1978 and 1979, Phantom Regiment had the incredible run of glory mixed with frustration, as the corps placed second, three years in a row. In 77 & 79, the corps was solidly behind the Blue Devils, as was every other corps. In 1978, the Regiment finished only a tenth of a point behind Santa Clara Vanguard in the closest finish up to that point in time.

The 1981 production of the ballet "Spartacus" was a project two years in the making. Although loved by audiences everywhere, the program failed to significantly excite the judges and placed only 5th. A reworking of the program in 1982, with additional musical selections, only rose to 4th place.

Even though the Regiment produced some of the most innovative programs on the field of competition for year after year, from the runner up run of 1977-79 through 1995, Phantom remained an also-ran, with a lowest finish of 10th place in '86.

Following the 10th place finish, Michael Ceasario became the Regiment's designer, introducing the all-white uniforms at the beginning of a three-year rise that led to a fourth second place trophy in 1989 with Phantom's score of 98.400 tying the previous highest DCI score ever. That 1989 corps joined the Kansas City Symphony on stage in a performance of "Elsa's Processional to the Cathedral" so powerful that a newspaper reviewer wrote that he felt like he might never recover.

The 1990s was a time of continued success and evolution, even with what was considered by the organization as a "disastrous" eighth place finish in 1992. The Regiment rebounded with back-to-back third place finishes in '93 and '94

The 1995 all-Rachmaninoff program, "Adventures Under a Darkened Sky" was accompanied by a change of the uniforms from all-white to all-black.

In 1996 came "A Defiant Heart: The Music of Dimitri Shostakovich." With it came the culmination of the dream of everyone involved with the Phantom Regiment organization over the previous 30 years, when the Regiment tied the Concord Blue Devils for its first DCI World Championship.

Maybe it was a case of relaxing after finally having that winning year, when Phantom went into a relative decline and fell out of the top six in three of the next four years. Following the 1999 season, the organization discontinued the cadet corps, which had begun as the Phantom Regiment Cadets in 1962 and had been competing as the Phantom Legion for several years. The feeder corps had maintained more of a local base than had the Regiment, as had the younger Phantom Regiment Pre-Cadets, which had been suspended a few years earlier.

The corps once again took on a new look in 2000 with another Michael Cesario-inspired uniform. The all-black was replaced by tan jackets and white pants with a red baldric; only the traditional Phantom Regiment helmets remained. Unfortunately in July, 2000, while traveling through Mississippi, a fire destroyed Phantom's souvenir trailer--- a substantial financial loss. Under the leadership of corps director Patrick Seidling and following the vision of board members like Tim Farrell and Dan Farrell, the Regiment experienced a resurgence in the early 2000s, returning to the top five at DCI Finals 2001-07. Seidling was chosen as DCI's director of the year in 2003

The 2004 show was a departure for the traditionally classical corps, as they presented "Apasionada 874," a performance of music by the master of the tango, Astor Piazolla. The theme encouraged much passionate emoting by the horn line and "a graceful tango across the field" by 12 contrabass buglers.

In 2008, Phantom reached back into the corps' history and brought back "Spartacus." This time around, not only was the show loved by audiences everywhere, but the judges responded when the crowds screamed their delight at every contest. At DCI Finals, Phantom Regiment defeated the Blue Devils by a minescule margin of only 0.025 points to win its second DCI World Championship (and first without a tie).

Through 2024, Phantom Regiment has continued to be a DCI Finalist, with the streak extending through 46 consecutive Top Twelve finishes.

The 2020 season was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The corps returned to the field for the non-competitive 2021 season.

Prior to the Covid hiatus, the Regiment had fallen all the way to a 12th place finish in 2019. Following numerous staff changes, the corps returned to competition in 2022 with an 8th place finish. This improved to 7th in 2023 and 5th in 2024.

[Phantom m Regiment; Drum Corps World, (various issues); rec.arts.marching.drumcorps, GSNewell, 3/28/99 & 7/26/00'; A History of Drum & Bugle Corps, Vol. 1; Steve Vickers, ed; Drum Corps International]

CORPS 169 items

Phantom Regiment

Phantom Regiment from the Bill Ives Collection

Phantom Regiment

Phantom Regiment 2 from the Bill Ives Collection

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Phantom Regiment 3 from the Bill Ives Collection

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Phantom Regiment from the Bill Ives Collection

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Phantom Regiment Color Guard NY Sticker-Decal from the Bill Ives Collection

Phantom Regiment

Phantom Regiment 1 from the Bill Ives Collection

Phantom Regiment

Phantom Regiment 2 from the Bill Ives Collection

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PhantomRegiment Rockford IL-2013 from the Bill Ives Collection

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PhantomRegiment Rockford IL-4 from the Bill Ives Collection

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PhantomRegiment Rockford IL-5 from the Bill Ives Collection

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PhantomRegiment Rockford IL-50thAnniversary from the Bill Ives Collection

Phantom Regiment

PhantomRegiment Rockford IL-6 from the Bill Ives Collection

Phantom Regiment

Phantom Regiment from the Bill Ives Collection

Phantom Regiment

Phantom Regiment from the Bill Ives Collection

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Phantom Regiment Shirt from the Bill Ives Collection

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Phantom Regiment CG from the Bill Ives Collection Contributed by George Walsh

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2008 Phantom Regiment Concert in the Park from the Chris Maher Collection

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Phantom Regiment from the Diceman Radio Collection Contributed by Ron Allard

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PDF Document

314-317, Phantom Regiment from the Steve Vickers Collection

Phantom Regiment

Phantom Regiment 1956-2006 from the Steve Vickers Collection

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