Anything and Everything
Mainstreet Brass -
enjoyed by the late
HOWARD SMITH'An exhilirating brass ensemble in a theatrical range of moods; you really can't go wrong.'
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Mainstreet Brass (MSB) appears unfazed by all technical hurdles and eager to turn it's breath(s) to anything and everything. The quintet's favourites include vignettes from opera, jazz, hoedown, nursery rhymes, folk song, TV themes, airs and/or dances from Scotland, Ireland, Japan, Puerto Rico, plus American jazz standards and several commissioned pieces — eighteen tracks concluding with a 'galop' by American composer/pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869).
There's a tendency with this style of brass configuration to end up blaring out the repertoire so more than a little bit becomes overpowering; never a danger in this release, apparently recorded at the First Presbyterian Church in Bethlehem, eastern Pennsylvania. I say 'apparently' as MSR's note writers are rather hazy about the non-musical details...
Copyright © 21 June 2017
Estate of the late Howard Smith,
Masterton, New Zealand
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