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Editorial Reviews

Compilation producer Joseph S. Szurly, who has taken on the difficult job of assembling the classically oriented entries in Universal Music's discount-priced best-of series Twentieth Century Masters/The Millennium Collection, simultaneously moves from classical to pop and from unconventional to conventional in his selections and sequencing for the album devoted to Canadian Brass. The all-horn quintet has adapted various classical works to its instrumentation in innovative arrangements sometimes written by members of the ensemble, and Szurly devotes the first half of the tracks to such pieces. Works of note include trumpeter Fred Mills' version of Pachelbel's "Canon in D," which leads off the collection, trumpeter Ronald Romm's version of Johann Sebastian Bach's "Fugue in G minor, BWV 578 The Little," and tuba player Charles Daellenbach's performance of what has been renamed "The Flight of the Tuba Bee" (Rimsky-Korsakov's "The Flight of the Bumblebee," of course) in an arrangement by Howard Cable. At the halfway point in the album, things take a turn toward the popular, with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, as well as the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra in toto, conducted by Lukas Foss, joining the quintet for a nine-and-a-half-minute medley of the show tunes of George M. Cohan, "George M. Cohan on Broadway," before such well-known numbers as "Bill Bailey" and "Amazing Grace" appear toward the end. The result is a good hour-plus summary of what Canadian Brass is all about at a modest price. William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide

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