Brass power

There is a multitude of lists compiling top ten trumpeters; who is the fastest, highest, most soulful, underappreciated, overrated, this, that, and the other... But I am yet to see a a list of the favorite brass bands. Let me step up with my nominations.


Fanfare Ciocarlia - Gili Garabdi
Subtitled "Ancient Secrets of Gypsy Brass," this album brings the Balkan brass tradition to the new century. A few recognizable covers - James Bond Theme, Caravan - are thoroughly balkan-ized, while even the most traditional of Horas and Sirbas have unexpected quotes bubbling to the surface (e.g. a glimpse of Pink Panther Theme in Hora Evreiasca). There are Balkan bands that are more authentic, playing more odd-metered dances and less pop fare (Slonovski Bal), there are some with a more virtuosic playing (Boban Markovic Orkestar), featuring a fiery frontman - but there are none that can compare with Fanfare Ciocarlia in their single-minded pursuit of getting people to dance.


Брасс Белые Ночи - Ретро в Советах (White Nights Brass - Soviet Retro)
Here's an obscure one. I love it not for being groundbreaking and revelatory, but for faithfully and lovingly recreating a dying - or, rather, stone-cold dead - tradition of Russian brass bands of the early XXth century. I believe they play not just the right tunes - waltzes, marches, tangos - but the original charts. There are no attempts to modernize the sound in any way except for the modern recording quality. Each voice comes through clear and strong, the fine dynamic shadings are not buried under scratches, boxy sound, and poor remastering. Extra points for the prominent use of baritone - used not just for oom-pah-pah, but as a leading voice. Grab it if you can find it.


Bollywood Brass Band - Bollywood Brass Band
I don't think I can give the background to this any better than the article East Meets West Meets East Meet... I'd like to include it in my list for a few reasons. This album is one of many that led me to picking up trumpet. It was not necessarily a major life-changing influence, but at some point I realized that most of the music I listen to have a brass section, and this disc was definitely on the horizon. Secondly, like Fanfare Ciocarlia above, it has the same fine balance between being reasonably authentic yet palatable to Western ears. Thirdly, it is really as good as much of the conventional brass band music, yet different and unique. I guess it can be interpreted as "my music taste is hipper than yours" selection :)

Honorable mention:

The Brass Company - Colors [1974]
36 years old; also, not really from a brass band tradition but more of an overgrown modern jazz combo. From the fact that it came out on Strata-East and from the affiliations of the players, some classify it as "spiritual/deep jazz." Anyway, great music, very adventurous harmonically, and also features my new favorite player Charles Tolliver. Great stuff!

Brass by mail

We were at our friends the other day and got to flip through a reproduction of a 1900 Sears Roebuck catalog, full of puzzling and amusing retro marvels. The fashion section all bristling with mustaches, the medical pages with a $0.75 "Reliable Cure For the Opium And Morphia Habit" and "vegetable cure for female weakness," livestock section with unspeakable contraptions for embryotomy (real word) and deballment etc.etc. And then I got to the musical instruments, which had me completely mystified. The picture above (from Horn-u-copia) is not from the 1900 catalog, but has most of the items. What a marvel of variety! Eb cornet, Bb cornet, C cornet, solo Eb alto, circular alto, bell-up alto, Bb tenor, Bb baritone, Bb bass, Eb bass, Eb contrabass, and any number of trombones.

Now, it took me forever to figure out the brass nomenclature, but I thought I had it sorted: Bb piccolo and a variety of high trumpets in D, Eb, F, A - Bb cornet or trumpet - Eb alto/tenor/mellophone (UK vs US terminology) - Bb baritone/euphonium (one octave below trumpet) - Bb tuba (two octaves below trumpet) - Eb tuba. Now the catalog is messing it up. What the hell is a Bb tenor? Is it the same Bb as baritone, but smaller bore? then why is it grouped with alto? Or is it an octave below trumpet and baritone yet another octave lower? That seems unlikely, given there is is also a bass (another octave lower) and a contrabass, which should boldly cross the lower human perception limits and also be pretty damn hard to play.

Another mystery is - why did all they all go extinct? They used to be common enough to be put in a catalog with bicycles and women's fashions. Now, I doubt one in a thousand even knows the word mellophone or can identify a baritone by name; not even musicians recognize it in my hands. Horn-u-copia also has a pdf with Sears catalog scans spanning 1897-1963, and you can clearly trace the rise and fall of brass. 1908 page has the most variety. Several trumpet models appear in 1927, but alto, baritone and bass are now confined to a footnote and "are unmailable", there is no tenor, solo alto, or contrabass. In 1937 there is but one trumpet, one cornet, and one trombone, ditto 1956 and 1963. What a loss!

PS: A mystery revealed! From Bob Beecher site:
The tenor and the baritone horn were both pitched in Bb (B-flat). Studying illustrations from early makers' catalogs, they also appear about the same size, except that the tenor horn has slightly narrow tubing - or a smaller bore - and a quicker flare at the bell. These differences affect the timbre of the instrument, giving the tenor horn a brighter sound. So, although it may play in the same range as the baritone, the tenor horn will not sound quite the same. Somewhere along the way, the names Tenor and Baritone Horn evolved into Baritone and Euphonium, respectively.

Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto...

...through the eyes of bass trombonist.