Now that’s what I call brass! –Volume 6
1-Nov-2008
The usual pick 'n mix of the best of the past year. But can a greatest hits release survive the iPod download generation?
Featuring: Black Dyke, Grimethorpe, PolySteel, Eikanger, Boscombe, Cory, Household Troops, Kettering Citadel, ISB, Gothenburg, Fairey, Brass Band de Bazuin Oenkerk
Soloists: David Childs, Richard Marshall, Steve Sykes
WOB Recordings: WOB140CD
Total Playing Time: 77.14 & 78.04
The latest World of Brass chronology of ‘Greatest Hits’ (this sixth edition covers 2007 – 2008) is the usual eclectic mix of the great and good, the spectacular and pyrotechnic, the reflective and lyrical.
Anomaly
In this day and age of 79p iPod download tracks it is also something of an anomaly of sorts too, although the CD itself replaced the much loved LP version of the very same thing over a decade ago now.
Forget getting your hands on a big old lump of vinyl with the picture of a busty girl on the front cover. The smaller, more user friendly CD came and conquered. However, in this very specific format of mix and match ‘hits of the year’, its now feeling the creeping hand of technological death on its shoulder too.
Still a place
There is still a place for a ‘Greatest Hits’ type release, but for how long you wonder.
Why spend this amount of money on someone else’s choices (although pretty good ones they are) when you can download your own for considerably less dosh – and when the same producers of this release are also pushing their own download versions of many of these tracks too.
More to come
Hopefully then will be a few more volumes still to come before the inevitable happens, and for serious collectors it offers a well packaged way of having 21 tracks from 11 top bands at your finger tips. Not everyone in the world has succumbed to the necessary technological evils of the iPod generation just yet.
Here then is a double CD of top bands from Black Dyke and Cory to the ISB and Kettering Citadel, Eikanger and Brass Band Bazuin Oenkerk and more in between. That’s a fair old stable of class – as too is the playing from them all on tracks as diverse as the opening ‘Toccata’ through the ‘Severn Suite’ and ‘Riffs & Interludes’ to ‘The Lord is Gracious’, ‘Ravenswood’, ‘Brass Blot’ and ‘Pines of the Appian Way’ to finish.
It would be some massed bands concert if all those were on the programme, and you also get the bonus of three of the banding world’s top soloists in David Childs, Richard Marshall and Steve Sykes.
Added value
It’s a pity then that the CD lacks for a better insert – an added bit of ‘extra value’ that not even the cleverest bit of download technology has yet to come up with.
You can understand that this release is a bit of a ‘shop window’ to tempt prospective buyers to other titles (helpfully shown on the front cover) of course, but it is a bit cheap of the producers not to give some sort of explanation about the tracks on offer other than just directing them to where they can buy them again on their original releases.
Given that one day technology will surely catch up and overtake these type of CD productions, that would have given this volume (and future ones) a better chance of surviving well into their dotage.
Iwan Fox
What's on this CD?
CD 1
1. Toccata from Organ Symphony No. 5, Widor arr. Philip Sparke, Black Dyke Band, 3.58
2. Severn Suite, Op. 76, Edward Elgar Black Dyke Band, 17.30
3. Crimond, Jessie Seymour Irvine arr. Goff Richards, Grimethorpe Colliery Band, 3.43
4. Copacabana, Barry Manilow arr. Philip Harper, Polysteel Band, 4.07
5. Riffs and Interludes, Torstein Aagaard-Nilsen, Eikanger-Bjorsvik Musikklag, 16.22
6. Sanctuary, Eric Ball, Boscombe Band, 9.22
7. Ar Lan y Môr (On the Sea Shore), Trad arr. Leigh Baker, David Childs (Euphonium) with Cory Band, 3.54
8. Music for Battle Creek, Philip Sparke, Grimethorpe Colliery Band, 15.20
9. The Lord is Gracious, Darren Bartlett arr. Olaf Ritman, Household Troops Band, 2.51
CD 2
1. Praise Tribute, Kenneth Downie Kettering Citadel Band, 3.02
2. Brass Blot, Hakon Berge, Cory Band, 16.19
3. As the Deer, Martin Nystrom arr. James Wright Grimethorpe, 2.32
4. Concertpiece for Cornet, James Curnow, Richard Marshall (Cornet) with Black Dyke Band, 6.36
5. The Water of Tyne, Trad arr. Philip Harper, Polysteel Band, 3.56
6. Song of the Eternal, Leslie Condon, The International Staff Band, 12.59
7. Ravenswood, William Rimmer, Gothenburg Brass Band, 4.23
8. A Celtic Charm , Philip Wilby, David Childs (Euphonium) with Cory Band, 3.14
9. Siegfrieds Funeral Music, Richard Wagner arr. Phillip Lawrence, Fairey Band, 8.19
10. Rondino, Denzil Stephens, Steve Sykes (Tuba) with Brassband De Bazuin Oenkerk, 7.09
11. Reflections in Nature, Robert Redhead, Grimethorpe, 3.57
12. The Appian Way from The Pines of Rome, Ottorino Respighi arr. Howard Snell, Black Dyke Band�����5.29
