Concert at Orton Longueville School, Peterborough

Have you ever heard people say that when they listen to beautiful music, it can move them? Well, I can report that on Saturday 11th Oct music moved me to the core.

You see I was playing in a concert that brought together the City of Peterborough and Harlow Concert Bands. This is an annual get together held at alternate venues and this year it was Peterborough’s turn to play host. Because of the large amount of players (over 60) the stage at Orton Longueville School, where we sat, was a little crowded.

I was positioned, with my tenor saxophone, directly in front of the drummer. We were so close there was not even room for a piece of sheet music between the back of my chair and his drum kit. I did not think anything of this until the first time he put the pedal down on the bass drum. The vibrations were so intense they caused the portion of succulent roast beef I had eaten only an hour before to dance in my stomach. When he violently beat four beats to the bar on the tenor drum the bread and butter pudding that had earlier followed the beef, followed it again only this time jumping up and down in the double helping of custard. Another reminder of how that deadly sin ‘greed’ should be avoided at all cost.

During our rendition of that upbeat tune ‘All that jazz’ from the show Chicago, The air around my ears swirled like a tornado each time he hit the symbol immediately behind my head. But whilst blowing a high note, I happened to lean too far back in my chair and my head inadvertently went under the shivering circle of brass. Just at that precise moment, the now uncontrollable percussionist hit the bloody thing. As a result, instead of a beautiful piercing sound which fully enhanced the effect of the music, it sounded like someone hitting a dustbin lid with a piece of raw haddock.

So by the end of the evening I was exhausted. I had bruises on top of my head, I was in the early stages of chronic indigestion and my ears were developing a severe case of tinnitus.

I look forward to Christmas and some nice quiet carols.

A Tight Sqeeze

The Papaya fruit is a yellow coloured fruit grown in Mexico. If cut open its core reveals a tightly packed cluster of seeds. So What! I here you say. Well the reason I mention this is because not only did the tune ‘Papaya’ feature in Harlow Concert Bands latest musical feast, but also because of the tight space with which we had to sit and play. It was so close that most of the band members felt like the seeds inside of the aforementioned fruit.

The venue was a very pretty 14th century church at Watton-on-Stone, Hertfordshire dedicated to St. Andrew and St. Mary. However, this is a place of worship and not designed to house 30 or so instrumentalists who require various amounts of space for their large lumps of brass and elbows. There was no stage. Why should there be? We just squeezed where we could into the area around the choir stalls. The brass section managed to find space towards the Alter, the saxophones sat under the pulpit and those that were left such as clarinets, oboes and flutes sat where they could fit in. Of course the conductor was alright. He had plenty of space around him to swing a cat, let alone a baton. I suppose that’s the privilege of being in charge.

Any way the music went down well and the audience was very appreciative. The highlight? It has to be our rendition of ‘Papaya’ and Paul Cutler who played the trombone solo so exquisitely. Because of where he stood I had the full benefit of his sound inches from my right ear. But it was by no means unpleasant. He produced a wonderful warm tone which seemed to fit the beguine/Cuban style of the composition. Close your eye and you could just imagine yourself sitting by the warm sea drinking a rum and coke.

And as a final thought. The church apparently was used by the Cromwell’s army to house Royalist prisoners during the Civil war. As I sat there squashed up against the choir stalls on one side and a fellow saxophone player the other, I wondered who else sat in that space over 400 years earlier. He probably have more room to move than I did.