Norfolk Fellowship Brass

Conductor: David Woodrow
Vocalists: Lindsey Johnson & Jayne Frost
Hadleigh Temple
Saturday 18th April

The guests to launch the Adult & Family Ministries Weekend at Hadleigh Temple were Norfolk Fellowship Brass, supported by vocalists Lindsey Johnson and Jayne Frost, together with their accompanist, Christine Bryant. 

Strong affiliation

The band is drawn from a dozen Salvation Army centres around Norfolk, its members consisting of musicians in The Salvation Army, both active and retired, together with others having a strong affiliation to the organisation. 

They were formed in 2002, and are conducted by David Woodrow, a former cornet player in the Irish Guards Band, who has also served as Deputy Bandmaster at Norwich Citadel.

They opened the programme with the march “The Singing heart”, written by Australian Salvationist F G Inglis, and featuring the chorus “In my heart their rings a melody”. 

Well balanced sound

The band produced a full, well-balanced sound, with the horn section being particularly sweet-toned.

The mood then changed somewhat with Andrew Blyth’s setting of the song “Be still, for the presence of the Lord” (D J Evans), where once more the middle of the band was heard to good effect.

After some brief introductions and an opening prayer the band presented Erik Silfverberg’s “Tomado de la Mano”. 

Spirit of the music

Described as “a march in cha-cha style” the band caught the spirit of the music well, with some nice duet work from the solo cornets, although the percussion contributions could have been more effective: various effects were employed, including cow-bell, siren and vibraslap, but their efforts sounded a little half-hearted.

The first soloist of the evening was euphonium player Roy Williams of the Sherringham Corps, who played an arrangement by Kenneth Ketteringham of the Stephen Foster classic “Jeannie with the light brown hair”. 

Sensitive

It was a sensitive and lyrical interpretation, but the sound could have been projected a little more, and the band was rather heavy in the middle section, particularly a couple of the bass entries.

To provide a contrast with the sounds of brass, vocal items were presented by Jayne Frost and Lindsey Johnson, both from Norwich Citadel, who are the daughters of David Woodrow and Principal Cornet Ray Todd. 

In their first slot they sang “Amazing Grace” (Newton/Major) followed by “You are always there” (Jacobs). With a relaxed, lilting style, and accompanied on the piano by Christine Bryant, they sounded at their best when singing in harmony, their voices not always blending particularly well when in unison.

Exquisite

Ray Todd, former bandmaster of the Chalk Farm Corps, was for many years Principal Cornet in the Band of the Royal Horse Guards, and has long been highly regarded for his exquisite tone and lyrical playing. 

His sensitive rendition of “You raise me up” (Graham/Lovlan arr Howard Davies) showed that he has lost nothing of those qualities, his smooth, silky sound rising above the band. Unfortunately, the accompaniment was slightly out of kilter with the soloist at times, and the bare fifths at the opening exposed a few intonation issues.

Ray Steadman-Allen’s “Selection from Spirit” draws together several melodies written by John Larsson for The Salvation Army musical of that name. 

Wide range

The music covers a wide range of emotions and styles, and the band coped well with the demands of the music, whether it be the relaxed playing of “Ask, ask, ask”, the impending menace of the extract from “For Jesus’ sake” or the quiet reflection of “Burning, burning”, with some excellent work from the trombone section in particular, and a delicate contribution from the glockenspiel. 

The closing “What does the Spirit say to the churches” was taken at quite a lick, the verve and excessive enthusiasm causing a little unsteadiness to creep in, but the band recovered well for an impressive finish.

The final item of the first half was a march specially written for the band by Kevin Mann, a product of the Sherringham Corps and a former member of the REME Band. 

Attractive

“NFB“ is an attractive march in traditional style, with an effective bass solo and plenty of interesting features throughout. Sherringham has strong links with the fishing community, as well as with the lifeboat station, hence the inclusion of the chorus “I will make you fishers of men” in the trio section.

Following a congregational song, led by Major David Diaper, a former Commanding Officer at Hadleigh, and the leader for the weekend, Bram Bryant sang a sequence of spirituals to a cd backing track. 

Bram is no stranger to Hadleigh, where his brother Robin assists with the running of the Silver Service Club for over-55s. Commencing with “Who built the ark?” he continued in his inimitable, laid-back style with “Wade in the water” and the little-known “It’s Jordan’s river and we must go across” before ending up with “Down by the riverside”, for which he encouraged the audience to sing along.

Fun number

A fun number came next, with the band’s percussionists presenting Leroy Anderson’s “Sandpaper Ballet”. 

As two of the players stepped forward with sandpaper blocks, the third remained at the back of the band, poised for action with bass drum stick at the ready.

The two featured players made great play of fitting in their rhythms against the band, sometimes playing together, sometimes in call and response style as the interludes became more and more complex, whilst the audience had to wait until the very last note for a resounding thwack on the bass drum.

Wonderful love

Jayne and Lindsey then sang “Wonderful love” (Rolfe/Clarke/Ballantine) where, once again, the passages in harmony were most effective, particularly the wordless sections, where the arcing phrases rose up over the piano accompaniment. 

Their final contribution was the Abba favourite “Thank you for the music”, where the wide vocal range in the verses proved quite testing, although the choruses were more comfortable, and the song was well received by the audience.

The scripture reading and thoughts, brought by the Band Chaplain, John Dennett, preceded Len Ballantine’s “I know thou art mine”. Based round the hymn tune “Unsworth”, associated with the words “My Jesus I love thee”, the band’s sympathetic rendition was full of attention to detail, with well-controlled dynamics and neatly-pointed phrases.

All brass

Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote his “English Folk Song Suite” for military band, but it works equally well on an all-brass combination. 

The band presented two movements, “Seventeen come Sunday” and “Folk songs from Somerset”, with a suitably light touch and a due sense of fun and exhilaration.

Toe tapping

The programme ended with a march by Neils Silfverberg, “True Colours”. 

Featuring two main melodies, “Yellow star and red and blue” and “We’ll keep the old flag flying”, the writer has also cleverly interpolated quotes from related songs, including references to “We’ll never let the old flag fall”, “Lift up the banner” and “I’ll be true”. 

It made for a suitably toe-tapping finale to what had been a most enjoyable evening, with a programme well tailored to the anticipated audience, who all seemed to go away quite content.

Peter Bale

^back to top