PRAISE GOD & DANCE! The Phoenix Big Band & Brighton 16
A combination of musical ensembles that might seem unlikely were seamlessly brought together for an exceptional concert of a seldom performed work at Brighton’s St Michael & All Saints. The Phoenix Big Band are an Arundel based collection of fine musicians, and exceptional soloists amongst them, who brilliantly create that classic big band sound and on this occasion the sound of Duke Ellington. The concert opened with two Ellington classics, announced as standards, but there was nothing standard about their playing as they raised the roof with Perdido and then Mood Indigo. It was an uplifting start to what was to prove to be an outstanding evening.
Photo: Kevin O’Connor
Brighton 16 then took over and delivered a series of spirituals from Tippet’s Child Of Our Time. There’s a comforting familiarity to these songs but when delivered by a choir as accomplished as the “16”, who at this performance numbered 22, the outcome is breathtaking. And no doubt the extra members were included to balance the full on sound for what was to come.
The first half was rounded off by two more Ellington classics, In A Mellow Tone and Take The A Train, and by the introduction of tap dancing soloist Annette Walker whose gun-shot terpsichorean talents added a further level of aural delight and rounded off a first half with an element of fun.
After the break the Brighton 16’s leader Matt Jelf opened by giving us a little of the background to Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concert, explaining that Ellington, a deeply religious man, had devised the work which is seldom performed but little of it was actually scored. The version that we would hear would be the culmination of research undertaken by two musical academics and perhaps the fullest transcription of the work possible.
Photo: Duncan Lees
Sacred Concert is an extraordinary piece that fuses that big band sound with a full choral score in a way that sounds unlikely but for the most part works brilliantly. Both band and choir have their solo moments and clearly the choral parts are devised to fit with that big band sound and include some delightful moments when the sopranos soar above the whole in a form that echoes those great moments of Hollywood movie scoring.
The band’s sound is big and pure Ellington in its structure, a great relief that he didn’t stray from what he knew best and try to emulate more classical forms of sacred music. And in there he places some beautiful and tender moments as well as the more predictable blasts of triumphant exuberance. There as some fine solos from the band too, a beautiful muted trumpet solo and a haunting saxophone solo that perhaps influenced Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek and his work with the Hilliard Ensemble.
Soprano soloist Emma Tring somehow manages to capture the tone of both a classical vocalist and a fine appreciation of jazz phrasing and in many moments she was the glue that held the two musical forms and groups together, that ability to cross from classical to popular music.
Annette Walker, Photo: Duncan Lees
And it was for me those moments when the two elements came together that were most exciting, the orchestra and choir swapping roles, trumpet blasts matched by tenor voices both punching through the rich sound of voices and brass and wind. And in a final flourish Annette Walker returns peppering the exuberant sound of the finale with her quick-fire tapping which would have only been bettered by my being able to see those feet in action.
St Michael & All Saints is a cavernous building, no doubt better suited to the vocal ensemble and there were moments where the clarity of the band was muddied by that acoustic, but overall it worked brilliantly and what a fine treat to hear this neglected work performed so well and to an audience that filled the church and gave a well deserved standing ovation.
Andrew Kay
17 June
St Michael & All Saints
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