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Brass!
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Enoch Light & The Brass Menagerie
"Volume II"
····
ENOCH LIGHT and THE BRASS MENAGERIE
Not since Enoch Light's "Persuasive Percussion" revolutionized the
entire concept of sound recording has an instrumental album created
such a furore as Enoch Light's "The Brass Menagerie" (Project 3 SD
5036). Light, one of the great pioneering innovators in sound recording,
laid the groundwork for the public acceptance of stereophonic
recording by the musical imagination of his series of "percussion"
albums.
And now, with his "Brass Menagerie," he has found a way of
revealing the previously unrealized range of excitement that can be
drawn from songs that have already been accepted on their own
musical merits
The core of "The Brass Menagerie" is a trio of brass choirs-trumpets,
trombones and French horns-each made up of a quartet of instruments
that provides all the harmonic parts for a completely
rounded ensemble. Add to this the powerful depth of a tuba, the
pervasive sound of an electric bass, the contrasting highs of flutes
and piccoles, and a percussion and rhythm section that uses all the
colors and driving accents of today's most inventive music.
This is the startling new concept that made the first Brass Menagerie
an amazing chart hit. Not only did it register on all the trade charts
but it was chosen as album of the week on hundreds of radio stations.
For an instrumental album, this was an incredible public reaction.
But the Brass Menagerie reached out beyond these customary indices
of popular acceptance. Requests begon flooding in from high schools
and colleges for their bonds to use the album in their music classes.
Now, in this second "Brass Menagerie" album, Enoch Light has
built on the knowledge gained in creating that first landmark album.
"We've learned more about handling the different instruments in
this special context," he explained. "We're finding out how far we
can go with them in the use of dynamics and in the ways we create
musical excitement."
Each step along the way is another adventure, a breath-catching
safari into new, unexplored regions of the musical wilds. In this album,
Enoch Light moves along fresh paths, finding new resources in
his unusual instrumentation, applying it to some of today's most brilliant
musical material, discovering new beauty, new musical experiences
and translating them into a vital, visceral form of emotional
expression.
····
SIDE ONE:
1. AQUARIUS. The unusual, deep, sputtering sound in the
introduction to this song from "Hair" is Don Butterfield's
tube playing its lowest possible note — so low that you can
actually hear the separate vibrations. The melody is projected
on trombone by Buddy Morrow, using a plunger
mute with a flute muttering moodily behind him. The singing
brass that rises in the middle section later changes to
a baroque style with the French horns answering the trumpet
and trombone choirs. In the second chorus, somewhat
the same pattern is followed leading to an ending in which
the sheer animal power of the Brass Menagerie is brought
out as the trumpets and trombones blow over the building
projection of the French homs
2. HAIR. Don Butterfield's sonorous tuba comes into its
own as a solo instrument in Dick Hyman's arrangement of
the title song from the long-running Broadway musical.
Balancing the soulful singing of Butterfield's tuba is a solo
that goes to the other extreme of the musical scale — Marvin
Stamm's sweet, penetrating solo on piccolo trumpet
which contrasts with the grainy quality of an English hom,
played by Romeo Penque. As the solos and ensembles develop
in this arrangement,
the scope of the Brass Menagerie, both in sheer range and in potentials for contrast
and colors, becomes increasingly apparent.
3. FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE. A succession of kaleidoscopic
changes keep this arrangement constantly on the move.
It opens with a highly stylized flugelhorn solo by Mel
Davis in which he plays exaggerated litte turns which
musicians call "doits". But then the tempo changes to a
march with flutes flying, the kind of music used in Busby
Berkeley movies when millions of chorus girls began
marching down endless stairs. And then this merges into a
piano interlude played with triplets which continue as the
flugelhorn returns to work its way back to a final, expres
sive slow passage.
4. HAPPY HEART. Two very playful passages enliven this
arrangement of a hit song from Germany. Both involve dissonant
interludes which have been intensified with the addition
of a little echo. The first interlude is by the trumpets
which end their dissonant passage with an amusing upward
smear. The second passage involves the French homs. But
before this, the high notes of an organ are added to the
Brass Menagerie's arsenal of musical sounds as they
sparkle with the flute through the introduction and then
establish a riff over which the French horns set out the
melody. Notice the rugged depth that is achieved by com
bining the deepest brass elements of the orchestra — the
trombones and the tuba — with contrasting accents from
the orchestra bells.
5. SLOW BUS TO OSWEGO. Arranger Dick Hyman was
playing a week-end gig with Al Kooper's rock-swing band
when he wrote this piece. "We did a jump from Hamilton
College in Clinton, N. Y. on Saturday to the State University
in Oswego on Sunday." Hyman recalled. "We went by bus
just like in the old big band days and I completed this score
on the bus." Using an exceptionally long melody, Hyman
created a piece that starts very slowly, almost imperceptibly,
and builds to a very fast ending. Along the way he
wrote flute phrases that had to be played by two flutists,
alternating, because they were too long for one to do without breathing.
6 STARS AND STRIPES '69. John Philip Sousa's famous
march was ideal material for such predecessors of the
Brass Menagerie as the great brass bands led by Sousa
and others early in the century. Dick Hyman has brought
the stirring tune up to date to take advantage of the Brass
Menagerie's power, range and rhythmic drive. "People
know the melody so well," Hyman pointed out, "that we
felt we didn't have to complete. So we sled the melody
out with the kind of guitar figure you'll hear on soul
records." The guitar takes its place up front alongside the
full brass in the introduction and swings along from there.
High and low contrasts leap from the arrangement — notice
the juxtaposition of a very low trombone smear and very
high flutes, the flute piping the melody against muted
trumpet fills. And in the famous climactic, descending
passage, the trombones and the tuba rumble down info the
nother depths before everything breaks loose in a hullaballoo
of trumpets and whistles.
····
SIDE TWO:
1. GENTLE ON MY MIND. The lively vamp in the introduc
tion by piano and electric bass establishes a tone for this
treatment of John Hartford's folk-tinged tune. As the piano
continues to repeat the catchy figure, the French horns
give the melody an unusual majesty until the flute leads to
a change of key that brings on the sharper brass sound of
the trumpets. Notice the way in which the flute extends the
high notes on the fills. The full harmonic richness of the
trombone quartet, one of the unique sounds of the Brass
Menagerie, is showcased in the second chorus.
2. GALVESTON. This arrangement by Dick Hyman manages
to be faithful to Jim Webb's melody and to deviate
slightly from it at the same time by using, as a focal point,
the accented chords that serve as the punctuation of the
song. Normally, this is part of the accompaniment but Hyman has used this element in an exaggerated form to give
additional dimension to the arrangement. The depth
and richness of the Brass Menagerie is evident in the introduction with its crisp riff stated over an unusually heavy
bottom sound. The distinctive sound of the French hors
carries the melody against solid brass fills with a contrasting marimba interlude. This contrast is used in a different
tashion during the slow section by the soft, muted trumpets
when the complementary accent is a flute with the marimba
peeking through from the background.
3. ZAZUERIA. The appealing Latin sound of "Zazueria" is
developed through a series of call-and-response patterns.
These patterns are ingeniously evolved so that more than
one instrument answering another is involved.
In the first chorus, for example, the trumpets call and the
French horns respond. But right after this the entire brass
section does an interior call-and-response as it moves in
and out, tades and returns. And when the fute is answered
by the French horns in a later passage, the flute seems to
be floating lazily along and the responding horns float
their answer in a similar fashion.
4. YOU'VE MADE ME SO VERY HAPPY. A fluttering flute
helps to ease this Blood, Sweat and Tears hit into a slow
rock beat that sets the mood for the arrangement. The
French horns, fringed by flute decorations, sing out in airy
contrast to the dark richness of the full brass ensemble,
which appears here and after a passage involving flutes
and a roxychord, an instrument that sounds somewhat like
a harpsichord. Notice the unusual weaving effect by the
horns playing behind the flute just before the beat picks
up near the end when the flute goes on to challenge the
horns.
5. GOODBYE COLUMBUS. The theme from the film version of Philip Roth's novel rides on a slight suggestion of
a bossa nova beat. The inviting introduction by an oboe
leads to one of the more gentle sides of the Brass Menagerie — the use of a clipped, muted trumpet figure over
the French horns. The melody is passed along to the trombones
with flutes filling in behind the trombones before the
French horns share the melody with the brighter brass
parts of the Menagerie. The gentle aspect is reinforced by
the unusually soft, spreading sound of the ending.
6. GOOD MORNING STARSHINE. The melody of this
"Hair" tune goes first to the trombones which soon fall
away to let the trumpets take the lead. The two choirs com
bine, with flutes dancing behind them and the French home
hallooing in the distance, to take advantage of the range
and scope of the Brass Menagerie's unique instrumentation.
There are two particularly warm and rich displays of
the melody, one by Phil Bodner's alto flute, backed by accents
from a triangle, the other by Don Butterfield's gently
graceful tube with the flute taking the supporting position.
(album notes)
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Enoch Henry Light (August 18, 1907 – July 31, 1978) was an American classically trained violinist, danceband leader, and recording engineer. As the leader of various dance bands that recorded as early as March 1927 and continuing through at least 1940, Light and his band primarily worked in various hotels in New York. For a time in 1928 he also led a band in Paris. In the 1930s Light also studied conducting with the French conductor Maurice Frigara in Paris.
Throughout the 1930s, Light and his band were steadily employed in upscale hotel restaurants and ballrooms in New York, playing popular songs for dining and dancing rather than out-and-out jazz.
At some point his band was tagged The Light Brigade and they often broadcast over radio live from the Hotel Taft in New York, where they had a long residency. Through 1940, Light and his band recorded for various labels including Brunswick, ARC, Vocalion and Bluebird. In 1955, Light founded Grand Award Records and served as president and A&R chief. In 1959 he founded a subsidiary label, Command Records. Grand Award and its subsidiary labels were sold to ABC-Paramount Records in October 1959. Light's name was prominent on many albums both as musician and producer.
Light was born in Canton, Ohio, on August 18, 1907. While he was a student at Johns Hopkins University, he formed his initial orchestra. When he took that group on tours of Europe in 1928 and 1929, he studied classical conducting at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and the Opera Comique in Paris. He also studied at Ohio State University and the University of Pittsburgh.
Light's early career in the United States had him leading orchestras on recordings and in dance halls, hotels, and theaters for about 10 years. His work was interrupted for two years while he recovered from a head-on automobile collision. When he was ready to resume his career, the big-band era had ended, and he turned to the business side of recorded music.[6]
Light is credited with being one of the first musicians to go to extreme lengths to create high-quality recordings that took full advantage of the technical capabilities of home audio equipment of the late 1950s and early 1960s, ...
-- Wikipedia -------/
Great Instrumental Music