Stewart "Dirk" Fischer - US Army

US Army

During World War II, Stewart Fischer was drafted and served three years in the U.S. Army where he worked his way up to the Army Service Forces Bands. He entered the Army at Camp Barkley, Texas, just outside of Abilene, where, after basic training, he chose to enroll in cooks-and-baker school. While working for a company kitchen, Fischer began sitting in, both on saxophone and trumpet, with the local Medical Replacement Training Center Band. From there, the Army transferred him from the kitchen to the band. It was at this time that he formed a lifelong friendship with jazz saxophone/clarinetist Al Drootin (b. 1916) from Boston. Eventually, a general, on the recommendation of a warrant officer who headed an Army band at Camp Reynolds, Pennsylvania, pulled Fischer from a pending overseas transfer and, instead, sent him to Camp Lee, Virginia, home of the band training unit for the Armed Forces.

Fischer spent six months at Fort Lee where instructors such as Gil Evans and Sanford ("Sandy") J. Siegelstein (b. 1919) were assigned. There were 250 musicians there, not just American, but from the Allied forces, too. Although Fischer took an arranging course taught by Gil Evans — who had been drafted — he already knew and was practicing what Gil was teaching.

Fischer spent time playing with an all-black military big band in Pennsylvania. When the Army still segregated soldiers by race, music helped Fischer bridge the gap.