Score!

20 Years of Music
Regent Brass
Conductor: Richard Ward
Soloists: Tim Large
Silk Recordings: CD003
Total Playing Time: 64.25

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The city of London may not be paved with brass band gold, but over the years its has produced a fair few ensembles who have more than made their mark and filled their coffers with success and much need prize money.

There have been many an aborted attempt to set up new bands in the capital over the years, but nearly all have floundered after initial high profile success. Thankfully, for every First City Brass there is a Regent Brass instead.

Formed in 1985 in Willesden in North West London, they started at the bottom and worked their way up. Along the way they have had many an up (including winning a National Third Section title) and quite a few downs, and are currently playing their contesting trade in the First Section under the baton of Richard Ward, a northern lad who has done the Dick Whittington bit and come down to the big smoke to seek fame and fortune.

On this evidence he is doing a pretty good job of it too.  Regent are a solid, well run outfit, still retaining three original members and with a good cross section of young and older players. They are no better or worse a band than the vast majority of First Section outfits around the country: They have a good core of main soloists, a well balanced ensemble sound, a tendency to overblow at times perhaps, but crucially, a real sense of enthusiasm about what they are doing. Given that there is no inexhaustible supply line of new players to dip into at the drop of a misplaced crotchet they should be congratulated heartily for reaching their 20th anniversary, or to use the slightly geographically misplaced cockney slang of the CD release title, a score birthday celebration.  

Richard Ward has picked a neat selection of works to highlight the strengths of his band. The main work is Martin Ellerby's romp through Errol Flynn territory with ‘Chivalry', which is all Saturday morning pictures stuff, full of drama and mischief, a nice bit of love interest and a big whiz bang finish. It's given a fair old outing here too, just perhaps in need of a bit more edge of your seat excitement in places as Errol battles the baddies, but nonetheless its a very solid and detailed performance.

The same is true for many of the other 10 tracks that make up an enjoyable hour and a bit of entertaining playing.

The opening ‘Harlequin' by Bruce Broughton is bright and breezy (even if the last bar contains one heck of a split) whilst there is a great feel to the Shostakovich ‘A Spin through Moscow' which really does pick up on the mind picture of two little Trabant motor cars pootling around St Basil's and Red Square with hefty Russkie men in the front seats with their muffler hats and red cheeks enjoying the sites and having a sneaky swig of vodka in the process.

On the imperialist capitalist side of things, the band really enjoy themselves on the James Bond Collection which features some tasty bits of ripe and fruity cornet/trumpet playing and a good whacking percussion section, whilst the Gershwin ‘Three Episodes from an American in Paris' may just lack that real touch of French finesse, but still leaves a pleasant enough of a garlic taste in the mouth to savour.  ‘Soul Bossa Nova' very nearly captures that touch of Brazilian magic to a tee too.

Some of the more reflective numbers do highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of the band, with good balance and depth of sound just offset by a lack of tenderness in some of the playing. Nevertheless there are still pretty good performances of ‘For the Love of a Princess', ‘Prelude to the 49th Parallel' and the ‘Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana'.

Tim Large is an effective soloist on the demanding Eric Ball ‘Clear Skies' and his contribution on his three main tracks is very good, whilst Anna Ferguson also leads the line well too when she takes over the end chair.

The best playing for us comes with the Rimmer arrangement of the old warhorse ‘Nabucco' which is given a nice refreshing run through with an intelligent ear to getting the basics in place and letting the music speak for itself.

All in all Score! is a fitting way for the band to mark its 20 years of playing.  As with many releases of this nature it would be so much better if the producers made more use of changing the balances at times to help the bands in differing items, whilst the absence of some sleeve notes about the pieces being played is fast becoming a disappointing norm on many brass band releases nowadays.

Still, here's to Regent Brass and another score of years to come. On this evidence they should have no problem making it a double.

Iwan Fox.

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