Dedications - Brian Evans

Brian Evans, Soprano Cornet
British Aerospace Wingates Band
Conductor: Michael L. Beevers
Kirklees Recordings: CD KRCD1046
Total Playing Time: 56.55

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Just about anyone can name the current great superstars of the world today, be it in sport, politics, music, literature and heaven forbid, television. It is not so easy though for the general public to skip a generation or two and try remembering who were the really significant names of the immediate past.

Ask anyone below the age of 25 if they know who Frank Worthington, George Brown or Anthony Burgess for that matter was, and you will be met with blank expressions as empty as their brains. Ask them to go back a another generation and you may as well take names out of a telephone directory for all the relevance they have to them.  (All three were great flambouyant superstars of football, Labour politics and literature repectively at the turn of the 1970's, just in case you didn't know yourselves)  

The 21st century cult of celebrity means that the meaning of true greatness has disappeared; fame is everything, and fame is as cheap as chips. Big Brother winners, mistresses of football managers, fourth rate soap actors and boy band singers are all that count in the minds of the MTV generation. Talent, skill and world class abilities mean nothing against the opportunity to get your picture taken in a "redtop" for crassness, hyperbole and sheer lack of any describable gift except that of being able to garner publicity. 

For those, both young and old who have a real love and understanding of brass band history though, the name of Brian Evans should be one that should never be forgotten, for he remains one of the truly great players of his, or any other generation.

When 4BR decided upon its "Top 10 Soprano Players of all Time", Brian Evans occupied third place on our definitive list. Only the great Fodens soprano player Charlie Cook, and the iconic Peter Roberts were for us, ahead of him. The reason for this was not just that he is universally regarded as one of the great exponents of the soprano playing art, but also because Brian Evans is the all important link player between two very specific era of brass band playing.   If there were no Brian Evans, there would be no Peter Roberts, Alan Wycherley, Kevin Crockord and the any of the new breed of soprano players who now perform with such virtuosity with the top bands in the world.

Evans was catapulted into the soprano cornet chair at the famous CWS Manchester Band of the early 1960's, when the glowering autocratic presence of Alex Mortimer ruled the roost and the band won the National Championships of Great Britain in 1962 and 1963, the British Open of 1960 and 1966 and the North West Regional Championships no less than seven times between 1960 and 1969 with players such as Derek Garside and Lyndon Baglin leading the ranks. They were some band.  Evans was asked (perhaps that isn't the right word for it) to play soprano after the resident incumbent injured his lip. Instead of being given a few months to get to grips with the instrument, Evans had one day, and even though his debut is remembered by the player as a bit of a disaster, the subsequent years saw the flowering of a very special talent indeed. 

When he started, bands played in high pitch and the soprano, although seen as a virtuoso instrument still lacked a solo repertoire to showcase its undoubted abilities. The great test pieces of the day such as Diadem of Gold, Benvenuto Cellini and the rest of the Berlioz arrangements made demands that tested the very best players on soprano, but there was no portfolio in the form of stand up solo material. Evans changed all this.

In the subsequent years with bands such as Faireys,  Brighouse and Rastrick, Black Dyke, Hammonds Sauce and Wingates, Brian Evans developed that portfolio, due mainly to his immense ability to show audiences that the soprano cornet was a true soloist instrument. Many of the leading brass band composers wrote especially for him as well as arranging some of the most well known arias from both the heavy and light operatic worlds and that of film and television. Today's standard solo repertoire of any soprano player owes a great deal to Brian Evans and his groundbreaking crusade to gain recognition for the instrument he so commanded with such brilliance.  What Evans did was lead the new way for soprano players from an era that was coming to a close in the early to mid 1960's and opened the door to the bright new future that today is inhabited by the generation that followed in his footsteps - the likes of Roberts, Wycherely et all. 

This recording, entitled, Dedications, is in fact a re release of an LP close on 20 years ago that the player made with the then Wingates Band under the direction of Michael Beevers. In addition to the repertoire that has been re edited onto this CD from that original, two other tracks have been added in the shape of "Demelza" and "Scherzophrenia" which is a duet with Peter Roberts recorded when both played with the famous Virtuosi Brass Band of Great Britain.   It makes for almost an hour of high-class entertainment from one of our most impressive and expressive players of all time.

As the recording has been transferred from vinyl the production values do suffer a little and the quality of the sound isn't as good as more up to date CD releases. The reverb in particular does detract (some of the accompaniment lacks clarity as a result) and the acoustic is a little "lively", but the class of the soloist shines through nonetheless.

It is bravura playing of the highest class - a style that perhaps can no longer be heard today, but it is a masterclass in the soloist's art, an art that Evans cultivated under some great teachers. The solo line is always bold and well defined, the shape and flow never compromised and the tone, full and true. The vibrato is at times more pronounced than is generally heard with today's top soprano players, but it is a warm and controlled texture.

There is an intuitive understanding of the material played; from the light to the sentimental, the powerful to the sublime, Evans is a controlled voice. The "big" numbers such as "Summertime", "On with the Motley" and the "Intermezzo" from "Cavalleria Rusticana" have real punch, whilst the subtleties of "Demelza", "Softley Awakes My Heart" and "Rusalka's Song to the Moon" are delightfully realised.  Add to some bravura playing on the other numbers and a superbly crafted duet with Peter Roberts and you have 14 tracks that you can enjoy to the full.

Brian Evans has been a true superstar of his chosen craft. With this release, all we can hope is that a new, possibly younger audience will be reminded of that fact. All soprano players for sure (and all of us are a super intelligent, compassionate lot), owe him a great debt of gratitude, plus as he shares more than a passing resemblance to Sylvester Stallone on the cover, you wouldn't want to argue about it either.   

Iwan Fox

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