Brass Music In The Public Eye

 For my final blog  post, I wanted to post about something personal, and what I think embodies a great way of getting the general public engaged in playing brass music.  This video is from a summer concert, performed by the mentors at the Kansas City Trombone Workshop (KCTW)  https://youtu.be/aX55Of6ivfU?feature=shared   KCTW is a summer workshop for young trombone players started up by some local trombone teachers in the Kansas City area. This is a workshop open to trombone players of all age ranges, anywhere from middle school to working professionals. The workshop is held weekly over the summer, and rehearsals are split between large choir rehearsals and chamber music rehearsals.  What I really like about this format is how open it is. There is a fee yes, but besides that anyone who lives in the area can do it, and it’s a great opportunity for young players to get to work with professionals and older students in the area. College age students are also gi...

 This post today is about a really cool piece we listened to in class today called “Invictus” by Anthony Barfield.  Link to Video:  https://youtu.be/6O8wKvJlLko?si=02SSCdtsaVuXO1se   I have already had a lot of exposure to Barfield’s music. He writes great music for low brass, and I just recently gave a performance of his pice for trombone, “Red Sky”.  This video was clearly a covid era video, it was filmed outside, performer were separated, and the general atmosphere of the video was that all of the performers were very grateful to even be making music. Covid was a tough time for everyone, I certainly have a lot of really unpleasant memories from that general part of my life. That said, watching this video made me really think about the cool things we started doing during that era. All sorts off projects like this wouldn’t have been made, or at the very least they would look very different. So I think it’s a good thing to try and remember some of the lessons we...

 The first piece was a Gabrieli piece. As standard as Gabrieli is, I’ve always loved both listening to and playing his music. The way the parts flow together gives the music such as a nice sense of momentum. The ensemble playing does a good job of making every part sound soloistic and important. The trumpet players especially do a great job of making all the technical licks seem easy despite how fast they are.  Next piece is performed by the English Cornett and saccbut ensemble. The sound of the saccbuts immediately strikes me with how much softer the ensemble sounds. The ensemble sounds closer to how a string ensemble sounds, and is missing a bit of the usual edge you get in brass instruments. The music itself is lovely, lots interconnected melodies, and generally major sounding  Same ensemble. This piece sounds even more like it was recorded on period instruments. The intonation is just ever so slightly off. But that makes me think, is this a problem or a good thing? Ol...

 For this post, I want to take a look at another oddity of a release, and that's a video that was made by the low brass of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The video consists of them playing arrangements of classical pieces arranged for the ensemble and some orchestral excerpts.  Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpfQQPwCmzc&list=LL&index=66&t=702s  This is similar to the J. J. Johnson album where in the modern landscape, it's pretty common to find videos like this being made by orchestra sections, playing music and putting them onto Youtube or other music streaming services. But as far as I can tell, this was likely made on the 1990's, where none of that existed. But yet here you have a fully produced video, that must have had some sort of commercial release. My guess is that they made it for educational purposes, likely to give reference recordings for certain orchestral excerpts, or just generally to make a great low brass section recording...

 This is a post about a piece that I highlighted in my student listening presentation, but I really want to talk about this album as a whole Link to Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBSYIYm-jmI&list=OLAK5uy_mHyL2dBqNVBcGJlVuVRk14QabpOC-zNro  To me, the idea of of a commercial release of an album of what is mostly trombone ensemble music is fascinating. In the modern landscape of Youtube and music streaming, it's really pretty easy to record and put out ensemble music like this, but to do so in 1956 when this album was recorded is wild to me.  J.J. Johnson at that time was already a pretty successful trombone player, and is heralded as one of the great jazz trombone players of all time. But even then, most of the music he recorded in his career was was mixed combo music, and this stands out to me. I couldn't find any hard sales data for this album or even much in the way of background information on it sadly. I'd really like to know what served as the inspira...

 I feel like I'd be leaving out quite a massive name if I didn't talk about the Canadian Brass at least once in this blog. I'd like to talk about them in the context of this performance they did about twelve years ago for NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series.  Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l-E3kyNcag&list=RD-l-E3kyNcag&start_radio=1  The Canadian Brass I think could be argued to be the most popular brass quintet in the world at this point, or at the very least one of the most popular. They have been active since 1970 and have toured around the world, made many CD's and records, made public appearances, and generally have at least some level of public awareness even today.  The reasons why they've managed to stay so popular are easy to identify, the play remarkably well, they market themselves well, they tour, and generally they play repertoire that is pretty easy on the ears of general audiences. Many criticize the group for that last point; ...

 Philip Jones Brass Ensemble:  The immediate thing that strikes me with the ensembles playing, is the quality of both the loud and soft dynamics. The tone quality stays the same, and the confidence of the musicians s very apparent. The audio quality is also very good. There are some brass quintet studio albums where the recording just doesn’t capture the dynamic range of the ensemble very well.  German Brass  The immediate reaction I have to this group is that they make playing an arrangement of loengren sound easy. They manage to make it sound as easy as if strings were playing the parts still. They also do a wonderful job of capturing the different moods of each different section of the piece. At times the low brass sound like an organ with how full their sound is, and I love it. Ensemble balance in works like this is a huge challenge and they do a great job.  Dutch Brass Sextet The piece that this ensemble is playing is more humorous n nature, and I like how ...

 On Monday we listened to the Elliot Carter Brass Quintet in class, and had a pretty involved discussion about it, and I thought it would apply to so of the themes of my blog.  Recording: https://youtu.be/av3dL90UEYY?si=XgQtMTREfLPEnA4x  The general feeling was that a more abstract piece like this made the class uncomfortable. I personally think it's a good thing that a piece of music can evoke such feelings, and I think there's a conversation to be had about art like this.  My blog so far has largely advocated for musicians getting out of the concert hall and trying to be more visible to the public eye, and unfortunately, that mostly entails playing pretty safe and crowd pleasing music. So the question that needs to be asked is how do we perform pieces like this in a manner that the public could actually engage with it? I'm not qualified to give a definitive answer, but I can at least share my opinions.     I think with any more abstract piece of...

 For today’s blog post, I would like to talk about the Mnozil Brass group.  A video of what they do can be found here:  https://youtu.be/eYRMbj6U2Ww?si=GHk2rgjUnEE_DrGc This group is far from an obscure group, a lot of young and old bass player know of them and what they do. But I find the whole concept behind the group to be really interesting. A group focused on live performances and comedy in their playing is something that you really don’t see a whole lot of, in really any genre of music, let alone a brass ensemble.  Any idea this has lead me to is what about the idea of an ensemble with a specific concept behind them. For example, orchestras playing film music is currently pretty popular but with if you took that concept, and put it in a chamber music setting? Like arranging film music for brass quintet or septet, and focus on playing concerts themed around the film music you’re performing. There are clearly a lot of details to think about, but what I think Mnoz...