Wonderfull arangement, beautifully, and MUSICALLY played. G.H. Green would have loved this, and probably inspired it a bit. Wonder if you have heard any of the "Imperial Marimba Band" records on Edison? Lovely to hear the old tunes, and styles still being played, and being played SO WELL! Thanks
What fun! Great technique, fluid sound; one of the most impressive elements is the accelerando during the introduction, as if all five players shared a single nervous system. But… there is a restraint that is perhaps meant to ‘legitimize’ the history of this kind of arrangement, a genre referred to as ‘novelty.’ I would have preferred to embrace that tradition, commit to it. Where we have cosmetic perfection we should perhaps have abandon. That’s the juice of it - harder mallets would have further distinguished the xylophone tone from the marimbas, which along with brighter tempos in a few spots would have emphasized the wooden skeleton quality that capitivated the world in the 1920s. (Back then, xylo bars were wood, and now they are usually a synthetic composite - more reliable, less idiosyncratic.) At its best, this type of show-piece is a sparkling dessert of an encore, not a study in sonic smoothness. That said, the chops on display are impressive!
