Reviewed by Trevor Kirk As I've recounted in other earlier reviews, I am very fond of brass bands, whether outfits such as Grimethorpe, Black Dyke and Brighouse & Rastrick, or any of the many highly competent bands that form the greater part of the musical heritage of the Salvation Army. The two ensembles featured here, the Upper Norwood Band from London and the Bristol Easton Band, get their collective teeth into some traditional and popular hymns - "What A Friend", "The Old Rugged Cross", "When I Survey", "O Happy Day" and (inevitably) "Onward Christian Soldiers" - but I was surprised, given the billing on the CD sleeve, to find a Songster Brigade performing "To God Be The Glory". I was also disappointed that the hymns were played 'straight', as they would be for community singing, rather than being arranged to enable the bands to demonstrate their obvious musical virtuosity. Well played and well produced, but as it stands, this is merely brass band karaoke hymnody.
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I am seriously disappointed in Trevor Kirk's review comment that:
Quote - I was also disappointed that the hymns were played 'straight', as they would be for community singing, rather than being arranged to enable the bands to demonstrate their obvious musical virtuosity. Well played and well produced, but as it stands, this is merely brass band karaoke hymnody. - Unquote.
The Bands of the Salvation Army were created for 'community singing'; General Booth used the bands, partly, to drown out hecklers and mainly to get the crowd singing the hyms as part of outdoor (usually outside a pub) services, the pub's customers being encouraged to leave the pub, taking their drinks with them, placing their drinks under their seats for the period of the service, to retrieve them and return to the pub at the end. (Yes, my maternal grandfather's family were all Salvationists)
If Mr Kirk wants 'bands to demonstrate their . . . musical virtuosity' let him listen to bands like the Grimethorpe, Black Dyke and Brighouse and Rastrick which were created for the purpose of demonstrating their musical virtuosity and not those of the Salvation Army which were not.
This is, all in all, a brilliant demonstration of the music of the Army.