O Music - The Music of Allan Gilliland
New Edmonton Wind Sinfonia
Centrediscs CMCCD 17111
This disc by the well-established New Edmonton Wind Sinfonia contains a variety of music by prolific Edmonton-based composer Allan Gilliland. Conductor Raymond Baril maintains a high standard throughout, with soloists James Campbell and Dean McNeill making distinguished contributions. Included are jazz and Broadway suites as well as music based on the composer’s Scottish heritage. My main reservation is that, for a single-composer collection, I don’t hear enough of Gilliland’s “own” musical voice coming through.
Dreaming of the Masters I pays tribute to great jazz clarinettists including Benny Goodman, Pee Wee Russell and Buddy DeFranco. Perhaps better known as a classical clarinettist, James Campbell emerges here as also a fine jazz stylist and improviser. In Kalla (“call” in Norwegian), trumpeter and arranger Dean McNeill conveys brilliantly the role of a riverside trumpeter in New Orleans circa 1900 making echoing calls that are answered by other trumpets throughout the city (with jazz plunger mutes much in evidence). Fantasia on Themes from West Side Story demonstrates Gilliland’s inventive orchestration and idiomatic technique in what he calls a “re-composition” of material from the beloved musical. O Music, Loch Na Beiste, and Love’s Red Rose evoke the Scottish landscape and traditional melodic style. Overall, this disc would appeal to those who enjoy any or all of the above genres.
