British Brass Band Debuts Its Talents
Critic-at-large
The Spokane British Brass Band Sunday, Sept. 24, The Met
The Spokane British Brass Band gave its inaugural concert to a packed house on Sunday afternoon.
Led by Michael Warner and sponsored by Windermere Real Estate, the ensemble is dedicated to raising money for the Windermere Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides funds for homeless assistance programs.
The world would be a different place if all start-up performing arts groups had such an organizational machine on line. Realtors are “people people,” and they must have put collective shoe to pavement to get the word out about the band.
Certainly giveaway tickets were responsible for filling out many seats at The Met. Plenty of free tickets were distributed to schools for student use, but sales must have been solid, too. Maybe every arts group should be tied to such a motivated organization with a cause to support.
All of the trappings of the Spokane British Brass Band were first class as well. Slick programs and classy banners hanging all over, not to mention all those shiny instruments shipped from Boosey & Hawkes in England, added a sense of festivity to the proceedings.
Those proceedings went fairly well for a first concert. Diverse programming and the addition of singer Robert Platte for several numbers maintained variety.
The Spokane British Brass Band did play a couple of marches, but concert works such as Julius Fuick’s “Florentine March,” with its extended contrasting sections, dispel any thoughts of “same old, same old.”
Dan Keberle, director of jazz studies at Whitworth College, has taken on the challenge of playing the E-flat soprano cornet for the band. Featured in a solo written for the cantankerous little horn, Philip Sparke’s “Capriccio,” Keberle exhibited masterful playing, taking leaps into the stratosphere in stride.
Platte sang several operatic and Broadway selections, some with band accompaniment and some with piano. Even though band member Mark Williams’ arrangements were well-conceived and Platte is a powerful tenor, the fact that he was singing in front of 30 brass and percussion musicians left Platte struggling to be heard in a couple of spots.
His rendition of Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma” was well-paced and moving even though the sustaining flow the strings provide in the original was missed.
Undoubtedly the most challenging work of the afternoon was “The Land of the Long White Cloud,” written by Sparke for the New Zealand Brass Band Association in 1979. This is a contest piece that intentionally throws loops at every member of the ensemble.
There were great moments and wonderful uses of the sounds brass can produce, but this piece was all over the stylistic map.
At times it sounded like a movie soundtrack and at others came off like industrial jazz. Brilliant fanfares ran up against comic effects.
Maybe Sparke was attempting to portray the entire history of New Zealand, but his ranging multiplicity of musical ideas had a difficult time coexisting in one piece.
The Spokane British Brass Band abandoned their tuxedo jackets, and percussionist Scott Jones moved his trap set to front and center for the swing hit “Sing, Sing, Sing.” With several of the cornet players trading to trumpets for solos and the whole band crowding to the front of the stage for the finale, this was the hottest number on the concert.
The SBBB’s membership consists of players with a wide range of abilities, from top-notch professionals to amateurs who all donate their time for the cause. The band encountered problems with intonation and accuracy here and there throughout the program but had many stellar moments along with the rough. They consistently made the most of dynamic contrasts for musical effect.
Their performance of “Amazing Grace,” with its sustained suspensions, was mellow and beautiful. It brought to mind the brass band’s centuries-old roots in the Salvation Army and the connection this band is making with that tradition by working to help the homeless today.