Milnrow Band in concert at Shaw Playhouse 2

Milnrow Band in Concert at Shaw Playhouse 2

With the almost capacity audience settled into their seats, musical director Mark Bentham brought down his baton for Milnrow Band`s first item of the evening at Shaw Playhouse 2 on Saturday (13 May), a swinging and upbeat ‘Sing,Sing,Sing’ from the1930s big band swing era.

Originally written by Louis Prima and recorded by the Benny Goodman band in 1937, ‘Sing, Sing, Sing’ featured in the bands famous 1938 Carnegie Hall concert in which well known soloists Harry James, Ziggy Ellman (trumpets) and Gene Krupa (drums) were well featured along with Goodman himself on clarinet.

The next two items were straight from the traditional brass band library.

Peter Graham's ‘Meditation’ is based on the central theme of his test piece ‘Triumph of Time’ and was commissioned by Black Dyke as a vehicle to show case its soloists.

Here, Milnrow featured it as a duet delightfully played by Natalie Beer on flugel horn and Adam Snape on Bb baritone.

Salvationist Eric Ball (1903-1989) was a prolific writer for brass bands, and as a tribute to him and to give the audience a sense of the contest arena, MD Mark Bentham included one of the composers' most famous test pieces, ‘Journey into Freedom’. Composed in 1967 it has been used in the National Brass Band Championships in 1967, 1975, 1991, and 1993 either at the ‘Areas’ or the ‘Finals’.

Percussionist James Kershaw was the final soloist of the first half, to step into the lime light. James surprised and ‘wowed’ the audience with his ability and dexterity with ‘flying hammers’ on the little used zylophone solo Mozart's ‘Rondo Alla Turka (arranged by Paul Lovatt-Cooper).

With the Saddleworth and Tameside Whit Friday Contests imminent, it was thought appropriate to treat the audience to a preview of what may be heard ‘over the tops’ on 9 June. Well known contest march ‘Mephistopheles’, a winner for Milnrow in recent years was featured, George Allan's ‘The Wizard’ was heard in the second half of the programme .

The members of Milnrow band then treated the audience to a surprise choral prelude to Radio Head's ‘Creep’ (arranged by Mark Bentham).

‘Creep’ was the group's debut single in1992 and featured on the first album ‘Pablo Honey’ in 1993. This part vocal arrangement for the band, highlighted the talented vocal talents as well as the playing attributes of the band.

Borodin's ‘Danses Polovtsiennes’ (arranged by Eddie Huckridge) (ref: also to the opera Prince Igor) brought the first half to a close. The composer died in 1887 after over ten years working on the project and his work was edited and completed by his contemporaries Rimsky Korsakov and Alexander Glazunof it was first performed in 1890.

The ‘polovtsiennes tunes’ were used extensively as musical items for ‘Kismet’ the musical.

After the intermission, the band commenced with the afore mentioned ‘Wizard’, which was closely followed by ‘Largo al Factotum’(Rossini) from the opera Barber of Saville... remember the call? ‘Figaro, Figaro’.

We were given a polished light hearted performance by Gordon Clarke using the full range of his Ebb bass.

The next item was by request, in which band choral voices once again took preference over instruments for the first bars of Queen's ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. Arranged by Darrol Barry/ Mark Bentham, the voices/instrument concept was a complete success.

The final solo of the evening was ‘Minnie the Moocher’, it featured possibly the least likely of instruments for a solo item.

An old jazz song going way back to 1931, ‘Moocher’ was originally recorded by Cab Calloway and his Orchestra and was brought up-to-date for us by band stalwart Tristram (Trum) Cox on Bass Trombone.

Ever mindful of the popularity of British composers and their music, Mark Bentham included two lesser known pieces by the famous Edward Elgar from his ‘The Wand of Youth’, titled ‘The Tame Bears’ and ‘The Wild Bears’.

Arranged for brass band by the late Gordon Langford, the former is peaceful and melodic and the latter can be visualised as portraying ‘big heavy angry’ bears.

Ken Watts, band president, said: “This very enjoyable evening of superb musical entertainment by the local championship band, was brought to a close with a George Gershwin extravaganza.

“One could imagine Gene Kelly dancing and weaving his way through the Paris clubs and traffic as featured in one of MGM's most popular musicals.

“Yes, an excerpt from ‘An American in Paris’, arranged by Howard Snell was a suitable way to end this well received musical offering by an ‘on top form’ Milnrow Band.”