Mark Nightingale

This is Mark's second solo album after his marvellous debut What I Wanted To Say.

I first had ideas that Destiny would be a great album too, when Mark asked me to proof the parts of all the arrangements before he recorded them with the RIAS Big Band directed by John "Jiggs" Whigham. They comprised arrangements by Duncan Lamont and Alan Ganley, two of our finest writers, arrangers and performers on sax and drums respectively, Steve Gray, and from the USA, Bill Holman. Mark also included two of his own original pieces.

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Andrew Berryman

As Denis Wick so aptly describes in his sleeve notes for this CD - "The world of the trombone has been enriched in the last ten years by a rising level of virtuosity that would have been undreamed of forty years ago". Andrew Berryman certainly can be included in that ongoing demonstration of technical merit that seems to be flourishing in the United Kingdom at this time. Trombone recitals are becoming such hot-beds of activity in the musical sense and this CD shows that power and control coupled with musicianship is very much Andrew's forte.

The disc opens with Concertino, Op.45 No.7 by Lars-Erik Larsson, which happens to be a favourite of mine. I was not at all disappointed, despite a reproduction quality on the disc which I thought could have been clearer in sound.

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Roger Challoner Green

In Pursuit of a Dream, subtitled Proclamation, tells of the germination, growth and eventual flowering of the CD of that name by Douglas Yeo and the Black Dyke Mills Band. In frank and unpretentious terms, the author outlines his own musical life as an amateur player "so undramatic and ordinary that (he) hesitates to tell the tale." His journey of discovery - big bands, brass bands, jazz soloists, symphonic music - is a story told in awe and admiration of those he cheerfully acknowledges to have enriched his life with their much greater musical talent.

Roger Green's obsession led him to join the International Trombone Association in 1981, and in an ITA Journal he read about the Ed Thayer valve for bass trombone, used and recommended by Douglas Yeo of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Roger's eagerness to own and play on a Thayer valve was frustrated by the complications of having it fitted, and a brisk correspondence with Doug was begun.

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Douglas Yeo

Douglas Yeo's new solo recording features live performances given in concert in 1975-6 and 1997, hence the title Take 1. Douglas says: "Such a recording is not without risk - there will surely be those who will complain that it is not 'perfect', but my response is, 'what is perfect?' I've heard many 'note perfect ' performances that have left me unmoved; for me it has always been emotional content of the performance and the aural connection with the audience that is most important."

The CD is well-produced with the sound quality from the seventies recordings comparable to the nineties. There is also an informative booklet to accompany the CD, and complete programme notes can be found on the above website.

The first piece on the CD was recorded in 1975 at Wheaton College with the college concert band and is a fine performance of Rirnsky-Korsakov's Trombone Concerto. Considering that he is a bass trombone player, he takes many passages 'up the octave'.

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