New Horizons .... a review
Contributed by Harold Nash ex Principal Trombone of The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and Professor of Trombone at the Royal Academy of Music, London.I am particularly grateful for the opportunity to review Nick Hudson's CD because it so amply illustrates the vast range of music that our instrument can effectively and impressively interpret.
When I stumbled out of the rubble of the Royal Opera House building site towards the sunset of rural Wiltshire in 1997, I made many new friends. Most were slightly impressed when it became known that I was a musician, but the answer to the question as to which instrument I played sometimes provoked a noticeable glazing of the eyes that betrayed a mistaken belief that my bread and butter had been dedicated to music hall glissandi or the bass solo of a marching band. Some of the military men I encountered revealed a flicker of nostalgia as they recalled marches past on the barrack square led by a line of polished slides proudly pumping out Sousa or Kenneth Alford. I hope to broaden their musical horizons by lending out this disc to educate them as to what the trombone is really capable of.
The programme begins in an area that I suspect is the most enjoyable and fulfilling for a keen trombonist: classic quality jazz. Chelsea Bridge one of Billy Strayhorn's many gifted contributions to the Duke Ellington Band gives Nick and his supporting trombone choir drawn from the BBC Philharmonic, English Northern Philharmonia and Grimethorpe Colliery Band an opportunity to settle down before relaxing into Neil Hefti's standard Li'l Darlin arranged by Simon Wood, the discs keyboard player. His other arrangement, Water from an Ancient Well by Abdullah Ibrahim, is a more serious matter with afro/religious influence, but spiced by some uninhibited jazz from the leader.
Rather like the Farewell Symphony, we then say goodbye to two of the trombone players, all the supporting wind players (including cornetist Alan Morrison) to leave a traditional trombone quartet for Brian Lynn's delightfully poignant Kathy. Then we are left with only Nick and organist Dave Chapman for the Funeral Oration from Berlioz' Symphonie Funebre et Triomphale. Nick's performance of this recitative and aria sound so effortless that I almost started to believe the truth in Sid Langston's statement to me at college: "The only difficult thing about playing that tune is having to go down to the front of the orchestra and sit near the conductor while he waves his arms about before you even start playing."
After a thoughtful rendering of an attractively simple melody by Jan Sandstrom we are hurled into Light, a blatantly contemporary experiment for trombone and percussion by Torstein Aagaard-Nilsen which utilises glissandi, mutes and other non-melodic effects. We return to melody with Nick's controlled tonal range and smooth legato in the Adagio from Rachmaninov's Cello Sonata in G minor, before organist David Chapman is dismissed and replaced by Tredegar Town Band to accompany the sensuous Russian folk song, Dark Eyes.
The technical dexterity and enthusiastic exuberance of soloist and swinging town band in this exciting Bill Geldard arrangement combine to uplift the spirit and prepare us for the two popular hit songs that follow: Hoagy Carmichael's Stardust and Andrew Lloyd Webber's All I ask of You.
The recordings title piece, New Horizons is an effective original composition by Robert Redhead and makes a fitting climax to the disc. It is logically conceived, full of interest and beautifully scored. It effectively serves to enhance the talents of band and soloist.
Harold Nash
Versatile Nick Hudson
Contributed by Vernon Briggs for the Brass Band World magazine.
This CD presents the solo trombone in many different guises and proffers a wide range of technical styles and musical contexts.
Four numbers with jazz combo backing introduce the album and to balance this there are four items accompanied by Tredegar Town Band at the end. In the middle of the programme there are four recent trombone publications and three of these are of immediate lapel-catching interest. Thus this disc demonstrates Nick Hudson's considerable versatility as a solo and chamber group artist.
Unexpectedly, Nick features more as an ensemble leader than a soloist until track three where he has a superb prolonged "break" in the middle of Abdullah Ibrahim's eight minute Water from an Ancient Well, but here as in the first two numbers - Chelsea Bridge and Li'l Darlin' - his contribution goes alongside equal solos on sax, flute and cornet.
However, the album's main protagonist resumes full soloists status with the golden nuggets that comprise the central section of this agenda. After the most dulcet sounds of the first four tracks we are peremptorily confronted with a fortissimo grand organ introduction to Berlioz's Funeral Oration for trombone (from his Symphonie Funebre et Triomphale). Here the declamatory and recitative-like writing for trombone is responded to by a chorus-like accompaniment for Orchestra that is effectively represented by the organ, and Nick Hudson gives a fine convincing account of this solo.
The second nugget, which immediately startles you with its burnished muted sounds is Torstein Aagaard-Nilsen's Light for trombone and percussion. The tonal combination of muted trombone and marimba is enlivening for a start and as the piece develops it is notable how well muted trombone sounds engage with glissandi techniques, and most effective use is made of these. Then, there is a discovery for all trombone soloists in the straight transcription of the Adagio from Rachmaninov's Cello Sonata in G minor, Op.11. This piece really works for the trombone and, when played by Nick Hudson, it will appeal to most audiences too.
When the brass band backing takes over towards the end of the disc, it's still in a show-band mode (rather than brass band idiom) for the first two items, and after an impressive account of Bill Geldard's Dark Eyes (originally written for Don Lusher), Nick Hudson performs the former's Stardust arrangement in a style that comes pretty close to technical and artistic perfection.
Finally we have a Salvation Army trombone solo New Horizons by Robert Redhead which is a sort of modest successor to Leidzen's Concertino. Of course this is conceived entirely in brass band terms and incorporates a trombone solo line of mainly traditional brass character. Nevertheless there were some fresh musical ideas in this piece and overall it makes quite a positive finish to this programme.
Vernon Briggs