Slick and fun The London trumpet sound impresses KEITH BRAMICH Cala    CACD0113

'Ten in the morning, a new group, the first session, a commercial studio. Too soon for magic -- it would take at least a day to get it going. But when Geoffrey Simon brought down the baton for the first read-through of Misty [listen -- track 2, 0:00-0:58], Guy Barker and his fourteen colleagues showed it was already there ...'

So writes Paul Sarcich in the CD booklet for The London Trumpet Sound, Volume One.

Not normally drawn to compilations or gimmick recordings (101 favourite heckelphone classics volume 23 and the like), I was in danger of missing this little feast, impressive from the very first note because it's both slick and fun, and the playing is top-notch.

For each of these wide-ranging arrangements [listen -- track 4, 0:48-1:20], ensembles of up to twenty musicians are hand-picked by John Wallace and Roy Bilham from a group of twenty seven top London trumpet players -- the list is practically a who's who of the UK brass world, and there's also a superstar percussion section.

I don't know if Simon Eadon used any post-processing, but it would have been possible (with sessions at both BBC Maida Vale Studio 3 and St Jude-on-the-Hill, London) to choose a natural acoustic to suit each piece. The sound is mostly crisp, dry, forward and exciting (suggesting the BBC Maida Vale Studio 3 sessions), but with more space and a deeper sound in evidence occasionally, such as in the Mozart.

The whole enterprise seems to be switched-on financially, too, with corporate sponsors, CD booklet advertising, exclusive availability of scores and parts for the specially-produced arrangements, and (no doubt with one eye on the international market) a blockbusting American finale (Stars and Stripes here [listen -- track 9, 2:30-3:28], but volume two, if you can believe it, ends with an arrangement of the 'Hoedown' from Copland's Rodeo). If this all resulted in a paid jolly for players, arrangers and Cala staff then so much the better, but it must have been hard work too.

Don't miss two extra music samples (in MP3 format) currently on the Cala Records homepage, by the way -- John Humphries' version of the Rondo Alla Turca and Sarcich's gorgeous arrangement of Sing, Sing, Sing by Prima which opens the disc.

For help listening to the sound extracts here, please refer to our questions & answers page.

Record Box is Music & Vision's regular Saturday series of shorter CD reviews