London Brass - DVD

[Dave Payn]

This finally arrived on my doorstep, having paid £17 and have the first package come through with the case but no disc! I'm beginning to wonder if they should have bothered!

A nice idea to film London Brass playing and have some of the players talk about themselves (though it dates back to 1994) but the whole package is shoddily done form start to finish. Most of the 'playing' involves London Brass miming to tracks from their CDs (most obvious in Richard Bissil's arrangement of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes where the harmon muted trumpets on the recording are 'played' on this disc by trumpets with straight mutes!)

If that wasn't bad enough, the synchronisation between sound and action is out from start to finish, from the moment David Purser starts talking about the group to the 'miming' players. I guess they also decided it would be a laugh to swap the pads round, so you see Oren Marshall on tuba reading from the horn pad and Anne McAneney reading her flugel part from the trombone 4 pad.

There are some worthy moments, namely Oren Marshall demonstrating his amplified tuba with various pedals, as well as John Barclay and Richard Edwards jazzing in the Bull's Head pub, but the poor picture quality and the problems with sound, allied to the poor synchronisation, mean that for me, I couldn't recommend this DVD, despite the obvious excellent playing of the group from their CDs! A shame as there are precious few DVDs relating to brass ensembles as it is, though Canadian Brass have just re-released a CD compliation coupled with a DVD which may well be worth exploring.

 

[James Yelland]

This sounds like a follow-up to an equally uninspiring LB video, in which a woman kept popping up, taking photographs all over the place. The significance never does become apparent. It also features one or two truly stultifying 'interviews' - it's only when the LB members move that you realise they are not, in fact, waxworks. A modest product with much to be modest about!

In any case, London Brass, which often refers to itself as the group which grew out of the PJBE, seems to have little in common nowadays with that great ensemble, being more interested in jazz and electric tubas etc. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but does anyone agree that what we need is a PJBE tribute quintet, faithfully recreating those heady days of the 60's, 70's and 80's? I think so.

 

[WorldofBrass.com]

A shame as there are precious few DVDs relating to brass ensembles as it is, though Canadian Brass have just re-released a CD compliation coupled with a DVD which may well be worth exploring.

We are expecting delivery of the 3 Nights with Canadian Brass DVD very soon. We've also ordered in their current CD Amazing Brass.
I'll post again when they are in and on the WoB site.

 

[Dave Payn]

This sounds like a follow-up to an equally uninspiring LB video, in which a woman kept popping up, taking photographs all over the place. The significance never does become apparent. It also features one or two truly stultifying 'interviews' - it's only when the LB members move that you realise they are not, in fact, waxworks. A modest product with much to be modest about!

In any case, London Brass, which often refers to itself as the group which grew out of the PJBE, seems to have little in common nowadays with that great ensemble, being more interested in jazz and electric tubas etc. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but does anyone agree that what we need is a PJBE tribute quintet, faithfully recreating those heady days of the 60's, 70's and 80's? I think so.

This would appear to be a transfer of that video, James! As for a PJBE tribute quintet? Hmmmm, maybe but with a lot of their recordings now available on a number of compilations, maybe the legacy of that great quintet should suffice! In any case, can any other group faithfully recreate those heady days? Philip Jones' skill in blending individual players into one homogenous ensemble is to my ears, still unsurpassed. (Though I hear good things about Onyx Brass in that department!)

Anyway, good to hear WoB are branching out into the brass ensemble world and stocking the Canadian Brass stuff mentioned earlier!

 

[James Yelland]

This would appear to be a transfer of that video, James!

Ah, is it? I didn't recognise your descriptions of the DVD, but that is probably because I only watched the video twice, at which point ossification set in.

As for a PJBE tribute quintet? Hmmmm, maybe but with a lot of their recordings now available on a number of compilations, maybe the legacy of that great quintet should suffice!

Their recordings may be available, but there is still a very large number of pieces in the PJBE repertoire - including many pieces commissioned specifically for the group - which haven't been recorded, and which probably haven't seen the light of day for a very long time. Pieces by Elgar Howarth, Birtwistle, Michael Berkeley, Xenakis, John McCabe....

 

[Dave Payn]

This would appear to be a transfer of that video, James!

Ah, is it? I didn't recognise your descriptions of the DVD, but that is probably because I only watched the video twice, at which point ossification set in.

I just skipped over the 'photo taking' scenes because as you say, there didn't seem to be any relevance!

 

[L J]

London Brass DVD

Speaking of DVD's, I heard recently that David Childs did a DVD with some European band.
Has anybody heard about this and if so, who is the band, and how does one obtain a copy.
Thanks in advance

8)

 

[PeterBale]

Re: London Brass DVD

Speaking of DVD's, I heard recently that David Childs did a DVD with some European band.
Has anybody heard about this and if so, who is the band, and how does one obtain a copy.

World of Brass posted about this last week and have a few in stock:

http://themouthpiece.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=8794

 

[L J]

DVD


This is the one that I was asking if it was PAL only or was there a N A version pressed. Makes me somewhat embarrased to read this now!
Unfortunately SONY do not permit all the world type of recordings to be played through their machines here in Canada
It has a chip or something that makes the machine think that it is reading a pirated disc and although the sound comes out great, the picture is nothing but a scrolling flicker.
The same happened with the Dyke and ISB Gala concert and Trevor Caffull and his group went to the ends of the earth to satisfy us here - we now can watch that as a normal DVD.
It used to be quite frustrating to read a VHS tape that had been 'converted' from PAL to N A, format, but the DVD shows absolutely everything picture perfect.
Why can we not have a world standard? We un qualified greens, who know nothing about electronics etc. just assumed that it would work as a CD and be readable, but no.
Anyhow, I think one of our chappies has a machine that will read the PAL format and he was enquiring about it.

 

[Jan H]

Re: London Brass DVD

Has anybody heard about this and if so, who is the band, and how does one obtain a copy.

Here is the band's website: http://www.debazuinoenkerk.nl/ Unfortunately, it is mostly in Dutch, except for the menu bar :? But if you go to "CD-shop", you can see the contents of the DVD...