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Canadian Brass' Unique Blend a Winner
Monday, January 31, 2005
By MICHAEL HUEBNER, News staff writer
The Birmingham News
Making a grand entrance down the aisles of Jemison Concert
Hall, the Canadian Brass looked and sounded as it always has.
With a few exceptions.
Sporting their signature tuxedos and tennis shoes, the quintet
from Toronto shuffled to the stage to a New Orleans-style
arrangement of "Just a Closer Walk With Thee," signaling
the celebrative lightness typical of a Canadian Brass concert.
It didn't take long to notice the spotlight shift to its
two newest, and youngest, members. Charles Lazarus ignited
the piccolo trumpet pyrotechnics in a Frescobaldi Toccata.
It was followed immediately by a solo from horn player Bernhard
Scully in a Mozart Rondo. Lazarus continued to dazzle in a
Bach concerto, a breezy tango from Astor Piazzolla and a bluesy
rendition of Duke Ellington's "Echoes of Harlem,"
played as an encore.
But take nothing away from the quintet's older generation.
Tubist Charles Daellenbach and trombonist Eugene Watts are
as spry as they were three decades ago when they began to
mix slapstick comedy with classical music. Trumpeter Stuart
Laughton, an original member who recently rejoined the group,
played as if he had never left. And despite timeworn, sometimes
silly shenanigans, they never failed to bring a smile.
Bramwell Tovey's "Santa Barbara Sonata," composed
last year, showed the group's sensitive virtuosity. A Fats
Waller tribute had them snapping their fingers and slouching
in a chair to "Loungin' at the Waldorf" and bobbing
up and down in their chairs in "Handful of Keys."
A Canadian Brass standard, a suite from Bizet's "Carmen,"
ended the program. Daellenbach described it as an opera condensed
to 10 minutes. Clad in wigs and bullfighter outfits, the players
took on the principal roles, including one "Don Hose,
eh?" the Canadian soldier. The bull, played by Daellenbach,
died chasing a red scarf attached to Watts' trombone slide,
playing the tuba the whole time.
It was silly, but played with remarkable accuracy.
It takes a unique blend - part comedian, part virtuoso -
to be one of the Canadian Brass. With Scully and Lazarus,
its future seems assured.
Authors E-mail: mhuebner@bhamnews.com
© 2005 The Birmingham News. Used with permission
FOR REFERENCE ONLY. NOT TO BE
REPUBLISHED.
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