Brass Band Finds The Comfort Zone

The Spokane Falls Brass Band with Ann Fennessy Wednesday, Dec. 18, at The Met

More successfully than any Christmas musical presentation I have witnessed, the Spokane Falls Brass Band with Ann Fennessy and friends have made their program an intimate affair.

Even more relaxed than in past years, what they do can hardly even be called a performance. It seemed more as if the group had bottled up their collective living room and released it to people who happened to have arrived simultaneously at The Met.

There was no pretense of dressing down to look as if they had just finished shoveling the walk. The group was comfortable in formal wear and made everyone in the audience comfortable because of their ease and who they are.

Who are they? Neighborly people who are also accomplished musicians. The SFBB program reflected that with lots of nice stuff: mostly familiar songs with a few truly unusual pieces thrown in; mostly some very pretty tunes with not too much of the pyrotechnic flash and dash.

The award for “most unusual” went to percussionist Marty Zyskowski, who brought a gyril, a West African marimbalike instrument, from Ghana. Zyskowski shared his travels by performing a haunting traditional piece, “The Beggar’s Song.” He then spent the entire intermission at the edge of the stage answering questions about the instrument and his adventures.

There was some refined high trumpet playing (and yeoman’s duty on the trombone) for Vivaldi’s Concerto for 2 Trumpets. And there was some musical humor, especially when “The Carol Singers” wind up in the clink, and plenty of genuinely relaxed and casual verbal interplay between numbers. This was mostly not calculated schtick, but the genuine personalities of people you would like to live next door to.

But what probably makes people the most warm and fuzzy is the pretty stuff, and there was plenty of that. “Still, Still, Still,” “A Child is Born/

Some Children See Him” and “Dost Thou in a Manger Lie” all elicited ah’s from the audience at their conclusion. Fennessy summed up the SFBB’s honest warmth when she introduced John Rutter’s “Candlelight Carol.” She said, “This is a beautiful song, and I’m going to sing it.”

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