Program No. 90 - 9th February 2014

Hour 1 (Jazz and Contemporary Brass)
Oxo Cubans

It's a little bit difficult to pigeon hole this five piece group that originated from Melbourne. i-Tunes has categorised them as Jazz, but that's not right. I like this quote from Drum Media:

"Are they acappella? A brass quartet? Jazz? Cabaret? Pop? All of the above, and more..."

Their line up has changed a couple of times over the years, but features trombone, tuba, saxophone and percussion. They can all sing as well. I won;t embarrass myself to try and name all the players, and I am unable to find a definitive line up online. I'm featuring music from three of their CDs tonight:

1.    Doona Hog
2.    Future Generations
3.    Letter L
4.    Tim Tam Slam
5.    Tom
     - More (2005)

6.    Grey Matter
7.    Town Takes Cover
8.    One For Me  
     - Just Like This (2005)

9.    Take The Time
10.   Top O My Toungue
11.   Ship Comes In
12.   It's Falling Out
13.   Truth Comes Out
14.   Roofrack
15.   2 and a Dog
    - Take The Time (2007)

 * Note the year of lease information comes from i-Tunes. I am pretty sure these are not actually correct.

Next week we play music from American Jazz Trombonist Wycliffe Gordon.

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Hour 2 (Movie Scores)
2014 Oscar Contenders

You may notice as we play through tonight's music that none of the nominated scores in this year's Academy Awards featured on my earlier show, where I played movie scores I thought highly of.  It appears as though the music nominated is generally low key and laid back, rather than the large bombastic movie scores normally associated with Hans Zimmer, (mostly) John Williams et al.

In researching for the show tonight I was unable to find a release of the soundtrack for the movie Her. I did, however, find one song.

For your consideration:

1.    Above Earth
2.    The Void
     - Gravity (Steven Price)

3.    Philomena
4.    Confession
     - Philomena (Alexandre Desplat)

5.   The Moon Song
     - Her

6.    Travers Goff
7.    A Foul Fowl
8.    To My Mother
9.    End Titles
     - Saving Mr Banks (Thomas Newman)

10.   The Book Thief
11.    Revealing The Secret
     - The Book thief (John Williams)

Next week, we are going to look at the collaboration between Steven Spielberg and John Williams and specifically during the 1980s.

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Hour 3 (Brass Bands and Ensembles)
Black Saturday

Last Friday marked the firth Anniversary of the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria. As someone who lives and works in one the areas most devastated by the fires, this date is particularly significant to me.

Back in 2012, in only my third show, I presented a 2 hour special program on the third Anniversary of Black Saturday.  Tonight's show will be a slightly cut down version of that show.

We begin with a piece composed by John Pickard called Wildfire, that now forms part of a much larger work entitled Gaia Symphony. It is being performed by The Cory Band, from their 2002 album Wildfire.

The recordings for the rest of the program tonight were provided to me from the composer of the pieces, Mr Barry McKimm. Barry is a trumpet player formerly with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra who has also produced a number of works for brass band.

The first piece was actually commissioned by Footscray-Yarraville City Band in 1983, after the Ash Wednesday fires, and was performed by the band at, what is now know as, The Hamer Hall in 1984. Barry was kind enough to provide me with a number of recordings of this work. I have chosen for tonight the Wanganui City Silver Band performance.

The final piece is titled Lamentations and was commissioned by National Australia Brass in 2011. The piece massive in scale, running at a bit under an hour. It is based on this written work, Kinglake Undone, by Jordie Albiston.

For the 2012 show I played the piece in its entirety. For tonight's show I will play only the second and fourth movements of this five movement piece. This recording was from the performance by National Australia Brass in New South Wales in 2011.

Next week, we feature the music of composer Goff Richards.

UPDATE:
The fire activity today in Victoria has been described as the worse since Black Saturday. As I type this now, there are Emergency alerts right throughout the State, including many areas close to home.

Out of respect for thoseaffected by today's fire activity this part of the show will now be postponed until a later date. I am busy trying to put together a new program. Tune in at 9:00 to hear what it will be.