Percussion And Brass - The Grand Award All Stars

 

Nature Boy

Percussion And Brass

Featuring The Grand Award All Stars

Produced and Originated by Enoch Light

Grand Award STEREOPHONIC GA 2255 SD

1960

Grand Award All Stars: Doc Severinsen, Mel Davis, Bernie Glow, Bobby Bryne, Nick Hixon, Ezelle Watson, Stanley Webb, Bob Haggart, Artie Marotti, Willie Rodriguez, Cliff Leeman, Don Lamond, Phil Bodner, Al Cassamenti, Sol Gubin, Dominic Cortesi

From the back cover: For the most exciting musical adventures made possible by the newest advances in stereophonic recording techniques, no instruments can match the thrills afforded by the brilliant brassiness of trumpets and trombones and the stabbing, insistent rhythms of the drums, scratchers, bells, rattlers and cymbals that make up a percussion section.

But there is more than aural excitement alone in these specially sound-crafted arrangements for percussion and brass, written by the outstanding pioneer in this new form of orchestration, Lew Davies. The tremendous variety of striking and subtle shadings that can be produced by either brass or percussion is another of the many ear-opening surprises they contain.

On Danny Boy and That's My Desire, for instance, you hear the bright, open sound of Doc Severinson's trumpet ringing out in its full splendor over the compelling beat of an all-star percussion team made up of Willie Rodriguez, king of the bongos, Cliff Leeman, one of the all-time great jazz drummers, and Artie Marotti, a versatile virtuoso on vibraphone, xylophone and all the drums and cymbals and knockers in the percussion set-up.

Yet on Nature Boy it is the percussion that dominates the arrangement. Extra accents are provided by such percussive tools as the guerra, which makes a scratching sound (at the very end you'll hear a small guerra playing against a large guerra), and the cabasa, a huge, rattling gourd, while the trumpet is gently muted and flutes and guitars help to carry the melody.

Then, in full contrast, the brass disappears entirely on Hands Across the Table, Allah's Holiday and the lovely folk song, I Know Where I'm Going. Instead, reeds and woodwinds are heard in conjunction with an unusual mixture of exotic percussion instruments. On Hands Across the Table a fascinating underlying rhythm is supplied by a handful of timbales sticks which are struck firmly on the open palm while the baritone saxophone, bass clarinet and accordion combine (in the second chorus) to form one of the richest, mellowest sounds ever recorded.

Allah's Holiday opens with a figure played in unison by a guitar and an Islamic mission bell, blending into a complementary figure which involves three piccolos and an electronically treated piano-a remarkable and previously unheard musical combination. During the melody you'll hear another intriguing combination of sounds-English horn and flute-and, at the very end, this same combination is spiced by the addition of a high-voiced piccolo. An example of the delicacy that can be found in a phalanx of percussive instruments appears in the opening of I Know Where I'm Going. The first repeated pattern is played by celeste, accordion, maraccas and vibraphone-a revealing lesson in musical lucidity.

Lew Davies' arrangements are designed not only to give new musical excitement and values to this carefully chosen set of favorite tunes but also to combine and contrast the wide range of sounds of which these instruments are capable. He has created musical subtleties that can only be appreciated when the sound of each instrument is clearly and separately defined both in the studio recording and in its reproduction on your equipment. The painstakingly careful engineering that goes into Grand Award's spectacular stereophonic recording has made this separation possible, preserving every bit of the fascinating and exciting musical brilliance that makes these performances a unique and memorable listening experience.

The Boy Next Door

They Can't Take That Away From Me

Music Maestro Please

Danny Boy

Nature Boy

I've Got You Under My Skin

That's My Desire

I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter

Hands Across The Table

Allah's Holiday

I Know Where I'm Going

Talk Of The Town