On the east steps the Air Force Band in uniforms of Air Force blue is playing hard and loud, but - queer - the music doesn't quite come through Why do you think the author chooses the word "queer" to describe this situation? Does the meaning of the stanza change if you use "strange", "weird" or "funny" instead?

The original meaning (and still the formal meaning) of 'queer' is actually 'strange' or 'weird'. The excerpt is probably from a few decades ago or was written/spoken within a formal context. The new, more common meaning of 'queer' was born from old beliefs of a prejudiced society, where homossexual people were considered to be 'weird', therefore it's a pejorative term, and it's generally not received well by the homessexual community. As the word 'gay', which originally means 'glad', but with time had its meaning changed first colloquially, then gramatically ('glad' does not imply a pejorative connotation, however).

So the meaning of the stanza wouldn't change it the words mentioned were used intead.