Spectrum's debut CD features tremendous arrangements by Jim Stephenson and Brian Buerkle. With a variety of styles and performers, Rhapsody is changing the chamber music experience one listener at a time. Rhapsody features Van Cliburn Medalist Aviram Reichert and soprano Elizabeth Stoner along with five of the most sought-after brass players in the United States. Get your copy today by ordering from our store or find us on itunes, cdbaby, and amazon.
Rhapsody features Gershwin's greatest hits (click for sample):
The Spectrum Brass Quintet—Rhapsody: The Music of George Gershwin
Brian Buerkle and Scott Thornburg, trumpets; Eric Reed, horn; John Rutherford, trombone; Jacob Cameron, tuba; Alex Trajano, drums; Aviram Reichert, piano soloist; Rob Conway, piano; Elizabeth Stoner, soprano
Gershwin (Stephenson): Gershwin Overture; Gershwin (Stephenson): Strike Up the Band; Gershwin (Stephenson): Porgy and Bess Suite; Gershwin (Stephenson):Walking the Dog; Gershwin (Buerkle): Rhapsody in Blue; Gershwin (Stephenson): Fascinating Rhythm; Gershwin (Stephenson): American Song Suite; Gershwin (Stephenson): I Got Rhythm.
Committed to creative collaboration, the Spectrum Brass has partnered with an impressive array of guest artists, including composer James Stephenson, to create a wonderful and fresh recording of the music of George Gershwin. From the exciting start of Gershwin Overture: Strike Up the Band, through the Porgy and Bess Suite, to the culminating I Got Rhythm, the brass playing and musicianship on this recording is first rate. Trumpeters Scott Thornburg and Brian Buerkle successfully soar on the challenging trumpet parts. They have an uncanny ability to match style and blend their sound. Their contribution is not alone, as an exciting sound and musicianship emanates from the entire ensemble. The playing of Eric Reed, John Rutherford, and Jacob Cameron is equally up to the task and helps solidify an already impressive group effort. Additionally, Elizabeth Stoner’s vocal performance on this recording is a good fit for Gershwin’s classic songs. It is worth noting the excellent piano performance of Aviram Reichert on Rhapsody in Blue. Brian Buerkle’s arrangement of this iconic concerto for piano, brass quintet, and percussion is very successful and enjoyable. James Stephenson, arranger of the rest of the music on this recording, has added an impressive collection of brass quintet arrangements to his already well-stocked catalogue of music for brass, something that brass players will enjoy for some time to come. It should be noted that the collaboration between The Spectrum Brass and James Stephenson has evolved into a full length concerto for brass quintet that was premiered at the Midwest Band & Orchestra Clinic in December 2010. The Spectrum Brass’s debut recording is certainly worth a listen and is suitable for all audiences.
Jason Bergman, visiting instructor of trumpet
The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS
American Record Guide MAR/APR 2010
GERSHWIN: Rhapsody in Blue; Porgy & Bess Suite; American Song Suite; Strike Up the Band; Walking the Dog; Fascinating Rhythm; I Got Rhythm
Spectrum Brass Quintet
Brassjar 2--69 minutes
The only way this kind of brass quintet program sounds good is if the players have terrific skills and play with abandon--not to mention with all the basics of good tone, blend, and intonation. And of course, it helps if the arrangements are imaginative. Each of these elements is most definitely true of this recording. Spectrum Brass Quintet makes spectacular things happen, individually and collectively.
The big piece is Rhapsody in Blue, arranged by ARG's own Brian Buerkle, with Israeli piano soloist Aviram Reichert (now a piano professor in Seoul, Korea). His reading is excellent, and the work sounds very good, even with none of the string and woodwind timbres Gershwin had in mind. Spectrum gives a wonderful account of a suite from Porgy and Bess, and a close-miked Elizabeth Stoner is the fine soprano whose tone ranges from breathy to brassy in American Song Suite (`But Not For Me', `Embraceable You', `How Long Has This Been Going On?', `The Man I Love', and `'S Wonderful').
Most of the arrangements are by composer James Stephenson, whose trumpet works I have praised before (SEP/OCT 2009: 247, JAN/FEB 2008: 203, MAR/APR 2005: 210). There is nothing average about them; they capture the original Gershwin while adding his own personality, and they challenge the players.
I am rarely excited about this kind of brass quintet program, but this is one of the best. The group consists of trumpeters Brian Buerkle and Scott Thornburg (his solo album is one of my favorites, JUL/AUG 2003: 202), horn player Eric Reed, trombonist John Rutherford, and tuba player Jacob Cameron. They are assisted ably by drummer Alex Trajano.
- Barry Kilpatrick American Record Guide
Text from the CD booklet for Rhapsody:
Let’s start with an image. In Al Hirschfeld’s familiar caricature of the composer, Gershwin’s chin is long and sharp enough to cut bread. It is a chin confident in purpose and intent, confined neither by the rest of Gershwin’s face nor, it would seem, by musical propriety. It’s a significant detail: that errant chin is Hirschfeld’s way of depicting a composer accustomed to working outside the box.
Take the ever popular Rhapsody in Blue. Take the more controversial Porgy and Bess. Part of their appeal is that they thrive outside the standard genres. Rhapsody premiered in 1924 at a Paul Whiteman concert billed ominously as an “Experiment in Modern Music.” Instead of music by Schoenberg, Stravinsky, or other luminaries of the avant-garde, listeners were treated to a bizarre mélange of “Yes, We Have No Bananas,” “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” Victor Herbert’s Suite of Serenades, and piano shenanigans delivered by Zez Confrey (“Kitten on the Keys,” anyone?). Among this motley cast of characters, Rhapsody was perhaps less out of place, but its idiosyncrasy was still commented upon—jazzy but not jazz, symphonic but hardly a symphony, concerto-like but not…you get the point.
In a similar vein, Porgy and Bess defies categorization. Premiered as “a folk opera” in a Broadway theater, Porgy and Bess was intended to cross boundaries. “The reason I did not submit this work to the usual sponsors of opera in America,” wrote Gershwin, “was that I hoped to have developed something in American music that would appeal to the many rather than the allured few.
Gershwin had a knack for appealing to the many—the popularity of his musical comedies attest to this—but his fluency as a songwriter was honed through a self-critical impulse and intense collaboration with lyricist and brother Ira.Ira admitted, for example, that George discarded four versions of “Strike Up the Band” before coming up with the natty tune that opens this disc. Like all great ideas, the final melody roused George from bed in the middle of the night. Finding lyrics for George’s nimble melodies also presented challenges. As Ira struggled with “I Got Rhythm,” he experimented with different sets of dummy lyrics: “Roly-Poly/ Eating solely/ Ravioli/ Better watch your diet or bust.” Not bad, really. The success of George and Ira’s collaboration depended upon mutual give and take. As Ira explained, “We are both pretty critical and outspoken, George about my lyrics and I about his music…Occasionally, I suggest that a note or ‘middle’ be changed, while now and then a line is thrown to me.”
Gershwin’s music lends itself well to the arranger’s art. Many of his songs have become standards—arranged, reinterpreted, and sometimes adapted radically by hundreds of musicians ranging from Diana Krall to Miles Davis to Sting. Even the concert works have been sliced, diced, and reconfigured in interesting ways. James Stephenson’s approach to Gershwin also covers a wide gamut, drawing from Gershwin’s music for stage, screen, and concert hall. Taken together, the collection on this disc showcases Stephenson’s versatility and the Spectrum Brass Quintet’s virtuosity. Their “Summertime” preserves the sultry haze of the original, but with additional arabesques around the melody and a refreshing, up tempo digression. Their funkified “Fascinating Rhythm” takes more liberties, giving Gershwin’s rhythmic kernel fresh verve. The arrangements also go beyond the typical brass quintet setup, allowing Spectrum to engage in its own collaboration with percussionist Alex Trajano, soprano Elizabeth Stoner, and pianist Aviram Reichert, who is featured prominently in trumpeter Brian Buerkle’s daunting arrangement of Rhapsody in Blue. This creative synthesis—enacted on multiple levels, from arrangements to performers—not only follows Gershwin’s example, it characterizes the spirit of the Spectrum Brass Quintet’s project. The performances here offer an abundance of perspectives, illuminating Gershwin’s music in new, unexpected ways. Enjoy.
