The Light Music series
from Guild, rather like Old Man River,
just keeps rolling along. I’ve no idea
how many volumes are yet to be squeezed,
extracted, filleted, compiled or otherwise
assembled from the mass of material
available but the results are always
imaginatively selected and presented.
Ancillary information on composers and
arrangers is thoughtfully given, though
Guild is careful not to reprise details
of every composer, arranger or bandleader
– since so many reappear throughout
the volumes that would be simply exhausting.
The theme of this disc
is Love – or Amor, Amor which,
being foreign, sounds better. The composers
range from Gershwin, Porter, Kern, Arlen
and Young to names that are barely remembered
today – de Rose, Sosenko, Croudson and
others. Most of the bands have been
staples of this series – Farnon, Rose,
Goodwin, Philip Green and Melachrino
are just some of the elite aggregations
on display.
This then is a self-definingly
Romantic selection recorded during the
years 1940 to 1956, though a little
caution seems to be exercised over the
earlier date. A few thoughts then. Farnon
encourages some exquisitely beautiful
wind solos in Cocktails For Two whilst
Ron Goodwin reprises the idea with fine
cor anglais work in his arrangement
of Easy to Love. The supremo
of the genre, David Rose, contributes
a lusciously slow version of Sweet
Sue, succulently beautiful, whilst
bolder feelings emerge via the fat toned
solo trumpet in Philip Green’s orchestra,
who together essay These Foolish
Things. This is taken at a loping
tempo and sports a mellifluous clarinet,
and fine flute work – and also, an occasional
hazard of the genre, the accordion.
Naturally there are
still solo spots for pocket piano virtuosi.
Stanley Black offers some pianistic
fills and asides on The Song is You
whilst simultaneously dusting his cuffs
for some of the more strenuously Rachmaninovian
moments. Along with the accordion and
the harmonica one of the occasionally
grating sounds of the time was modish
percussion. An example of this regrettably
not-yet-extinct genus comes in Werner
Müller’s I'll String Along With
You. This track sounds rather strange
to my ears; is the now-coming, now-going
string sound reflective of the original?
It sounds muddy to me.
The title track is
played by Frank Cordell and his orchestra.
Its tango-ish, Bolero-esque drama is
well calibrated and contrasts strongly
with I Love The Moon, the gentle
seriousness of which is delicately touched
in by that superb veteran Charles Williams,
an old East End fiddle player. Let’s
forgive the vague boogie cow-pokery
of Land of Dreams as suggested
by Hugo Winterhalter with pianist Eddie
Haywood.
Another notch then
on Guild’s Light Music bedpost
- insinuating romance from a less than
burnished time.
Jonathan Woolf
GUILD
LIGHT MUSIC GLCD 5133 [78:24]
