For those on a low cholesterol diet this Christmas but not wishing
to give up on the cheese altogether this might well be the album
to save your festive indulging. This is as cheesy as a cheese
stick bathed in stilton, dusted with parmesan and dunked in
a fondue. I loved it. Take the super-skilled Dallas Wind Symphony,
add Prof. Johnson hi-fi engineering, some ear-tickling arrangements
and a healthy dollop of not-taking-it-all-too-seriously and
you have a recipe for a really enjoyable alternative Christmas
disc. That the tongue is firmly in the cheek is clear from the
liner which gently parodies Christmas Texan-style “…
unlike everything else in Texas, real Texas snowmen are really
really small…”. But don’t confuse light-hearted
or tongue in cheek with anything in the slightest bit second-rate
or ill-considered. If the thought of any version of “Have
yourself a merry little Christmas”” or “Chestnuts
roasting on an open fire” is going to have you reach for
your bumper box of humbug humbugs to suck on stick with the
choir of King’s College - this is most certainly not for
you.
Get past the preconception and there’s actually an interesting
and diverse programme of styles and arrangements offered here.
Not that I do not like everything equally - but isn’t
that the case with Christmas presents too! The Dallas Wind Symphony
are around 55 strong with full wind and brass sections filled
out ‘extra’ instruments such as Euphoniums and Flugelhorns,
saxophones and even a contra-alto clarinet. I have no idea what
that last instrument is. The presence of a harp, piano and organ
in certain pieces subtly tweak the aural character from ‘just’
wind and brass to something more symphonic. All of the music
presented here arranges well-known melodies associated with
Christmas to a varying degree. The one that sticks out as being
not especially seasonal is Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring
[track 3]. This is a beautifully moulded performance with the
rich lower sonorities of the Symphony blending to produce a
wonderfully sonorous and well shaped interpretation. Nice little
glints on the harp and a subtle underpinning from the timpani
reinforce the impression that this is a very skilful arrangement.
Before that there’s a newy and an oldy to open the programme.
John Wasson’s Festival Fanfare for Christmas is
very much in the style of the numerous John Williams’
fanfares out of Danny Elfman and the recording immediately exhibits
the Prof. Johnson trademarks of very extended bass response
[organ pedals and bass drum having a field day] and a wide dynamic
range with plenty of detail. Occasionally I think this can be
too much of a good thing but it certainly brings an exciting
dynamism to proceedings. That being said the wind band version
of Leroy Anderson’s Sleigh Ride is just ever so slightly
staid. A couple of curios in the transcription; when the main
theme goes into a swinging eight bar phrase in the middle a
rather deadening marching band bass drum part has been added
that kills the feel and then at the end we get a pair of trumpets
whinnying instead of the usual one.
David Lovrien is one of the Symphony’s long-time saxophonists
and he is the arranger behind the hugely enjoyable Minor
Alteration: Christmas through the Looking Glass. The “what-if”
premise here is to take well-known Christmas tunes [again!]
but play them in minor keys. It’s a rather fun mini-quiz
seeing how quickly you can work out name that tune. Some are
more hidden than others. There is no mention of this in the
liner but I wonder if a second inspiration/layer of arranging
was to do these tunes as if they had been taken out of Fiddler
on the Roof. Certainly there’s a faux-Russian peasant
feel that’s very funny. “Santa Claus is coming to
town” as an um-cha minor key dance is great. Likewise
Jingle Bells [again again already!] as a Matchmaker-cum-Mancini
waltz is a particularly subtle version. The closing Wedding
Dance meets the Nutcracker Trepak meets “Now’s the
Season” is a tour de force of arranging and playing. I
could live without the two tracks where the arranging tiptoes
into big-band/lounge. Nice playing - certainly from lead sax
Don Fabian - but I do not respond to a wind band trying to sound
not like a wind band. That Pops standards can work for a Symphonic
Wind line-up is proved with both the lush Have yourself a
merry little Christmas [track 7]and the percussion-led
and effectively minimalist Deck the Halls [track 9. The
second Leroy Anderson contribution is the grand-daddy of Christmas
medleys - his Christmas Festival - originally for full
orchestra - is still one of the best. The liner notes that conductor
Junkin gets hate mail if they do not include it in their seasonal
programmes - welcome to Texas. More curiosities in the transcription
here. The organ pedals rather overwhelm the daunted clarinets
in the lovely version of Silent Night yet at the end when the
full organ should thunder out holding a chord over the orchestral
stabs there is nothing at all. An error of judgement by whoever
cut those from the original for sure.
Just in case you have the memory of a goldfish and have forgotten
that you have heard Jingle Bells several times already track
10 is a fantasy devoted to it and it alone. By now one should
be heartily sick of it but you know what, the sheer good natured
ebullience of this version sweeps all that aside. The longest
piece by some distance is Alfred Reed’s Russian Christmas
Music. This does consist of traditional Russian folk and
Orthodox music but since - to me at least - the melodies are
less familiar this emerges as more of an original work rather
than an arrangement. The integration of the Orthodox chants
reminded on more than one occasion of Rimsky-Korsakov’s
Russian Easter Festival Overture. Enjoyable as the programme
is as a whole this piece does offer a welcome respite from the
relentless up-tempo bonhomie of the rest of the disc. It also
offers the Symphony the opportunity to display some beautifully
poetic solo playing from some of the wind who get rather submerged
in the antics of the other music. That being said the powerful
climax around the 11:00 mark is cinematically impressive.
The disc closes with Christmas and Sousa Forever. Its
one of those old-fashioned ‘musical switches’ so
we get the piccolo descant of Stars and Stripes forever over
a transmuted Rudolf the Red nosed Reindeer as just one example.
Clever but for some reason it doesn’t make me smile. The
liner advises; “If you’re looking for the ultimate
Christmas/Sousa mash-up, look no further.” Perhaps I wasn’t.
But it would be quite wrong to end this review on a bah-humbug.
Great fun, well played, spectacular engineering - pass the port.
I’ll leave the last word to the liner; “Merry Christmas
y’all!”
Nick Barnard
Dallas Wind Symphony/Jerry Junkin 