Re: brass quintet history


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Posted by Here's a quote on January 07, 2003 at 18:21:00:

In Reply to: brass quintet history posted by scott on January 07, 2003 at 07:03:59:

I ran across this one some time ago. It's from the Vincent Cichowicz article "Philip Jones, The Price of Brass" in the August, 1986 Intstrumentalist. Jones mentions that he initially had two groups; a quartet with 2 trumpets, horn and trombone, and a quintet with 2 trumpets and 3 trombones:

"...After awhile I became interested in using the tuba, but I never believed it could work in a small brass group; I thought that the blends would be a problem. When Nagle and the New York Brass Quintet came to London in the early 60's with Harvey Phillips playing tuba, it was the first time that I had heard that instrument as part of the organization, instead of something outside the group playing the oompahs. Though I had an excellent tuba player, he was strictly an orchestral player and approached everything that way. Harvey Phillips had a sound and a flexibility that I had not heard before in tuba playing. I was absolutely knocked out by two things; the quintet's tremendous technical fluency and the fact that they could keep going for so long. We didn't know how to do that in those days; they showed me it was possible. Shortly after that I had the good luck of having John Fletcher appear on the horizon, out of nowhere from Cambridge. Someone said to me, "You should hear this crackpot Fletcher, who plays the tuba as you have not heard before," so I asked him to come and have blow with us. We played a quintet through with the tuba, and I knew I was in business."

Hope this helps!
--Chuck(G)





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