I recently had the
pleasure of reviewing one of the latest editions to the Guild’s Golden Age of
Light Music series – Stereo into the
Sixties. The full review will appear on this ‘blog’ and on MusicWeb
International in due course. However, whilst listening to the various excellent
arrangements of Gershwin, Kern and Porter I came across two excellent
‘original’ compositions. These were Ron Goodwin’s London Serenade and Don Banks’ Coney
Island.
Donald (Don) Oscar
Banks (1923-1980) was an Australian composer who is probably best known for his
‘serious’ compositions which sometimes made use of serial technique and and experiments
with electronic media including the Moog Synthesiser. However, his career included considerable
contributions to the worlds of jazz, commercial recordings and film music. His musical mentors included Milton Babbitt,
Luigi Dallapiccola and Luigi Nono. When
in London, he studied with the exiled Hungarian composer, Mátyás Seiber. It was
through Seiber that he was introduced to the world of film music – specialising
in cartoons and Hammer Horror films. Many folk will have heard Don Banks’ music
without recognising the name or his wider interests.
Don Banks’ vision
of Coney Island suggests all the romance of a day at Coney Island -probably in
the nineteen-fifties. Certainly the last
time I was there, it was a shadow of it former self, yet still exuding a
certain excitement and and faded glory. The fundamental ethos of this work is surely
of one pair of lovers enjoying the funfair and another pair who watch the
proceedings from the boardwalk or from a quiet bar.
The work opens with a
brash, brassy passage that defines the razzmatazz of the funfair. However, this
is soon balanced by a lovely romantic tune for the strings, which is frequently
interrupted by rhythmical brass chords. A short bridge passage highlighting the
harp leads to a slightly more relaxed dance tune. After a brass fanfare, some scurrying
‘cartoon’ music featuring woodwind, xylophone and glockenspiel dissolve into a smoky,
saxophone dominated nocturne as the lovers watch the neon lights of the funfair
from the beach. Sweeping strings and a romantic melody lead to a reprise of the
opening music. An energetic coda re-establishes the mood of excitement and faux
terror of the big rides.
The present recording
was made in 1961, was in stereo and was played by The Sinfonia of London,
conducted by Douglas Gamley. Coney Island
is available on Guild GLCD 5192. A short
extract can be heard on the Guild
Website. For the cognoscenti the work was first released on
a LP entitled Musical merry-go-round (World Club Records STE-275) which
contained works by Jacques Ibert, Igor Stravinsky, Oscar Strauss, Richard
Rogers and Henri Sauget. All the works on this LP evoked the circus or ‘all the
fun of the fair.’
5 comments:
No comments yet on Coney Island by Don Banks! Well, by golly, I'll be the first then. It was while I was living in New York that I first heard Banks' Coney Island on a New Jersey radio station, which usually played rather banal wallpaper music. So this piece stood out like a geyser in a desert. Mr. Banks is more noted for his horror music film scores. This is a wonderful departure. This IS New York City music. It catches the great spirit of the greatest city in the world -- in my opinion. Thanks for the excellent writeup!
Indeed, Coney Island is one of my top favorites. It evokes New York City in spirit, from the Broadway overture sounding introduction to the saxophone motif for lovers.
Thanks for that y'all
It is a great piece
J
I was entranced by "Coney Island" when I first heard it on A.B.C. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) way back, probably some time in the 1970s, and I badly wanted to hear it again and to record it on the 5-inch-reel portable tape recorder I had - but it never came, and I thought it must be such a rare piece that I would never hear it ever again.
But eventually, many years later, I did manage to get it, and there is now a YouTube video which plays it, which has been there quite a long time now.
There is another composition by Banks which has a somewhat similar feeling to this, especially in its slow, middle movement. This piece is "Nexus" from 1971 or so, and it is written for piano, jazz ensemble, and symphony orchestra. The gold standard performance of this, in my opinion, is unfortunately very rare now, but it used to be broadcast on A.B.C. radio from time to time. This performance was its Australian premiere, I believe, or possibly even world premiere, and I think it was at a Proms concert in Sydney, and featured Judy Baily on piano, the Don Burrows Quintet (with Don Burrows playing a bass flute), and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Hopkins.
Other performances have been done and some may be available commercially, but the ones I've heard don't come close to this one with Don Burrows (in m opinion). Whether it's his wonderful bass flute that does it, I'm not sure - but it's a great performance that may, sadly, be lost for ever now. With the jazz parts being largely improvised, this does mean that different performances will be much more different from each other than would be the case with most classical music with a written-out score. The dreamy slow movement with Don Burrows's extended solos on bass flute and then muted fluegelhorn are just musical magic.
Thanks for that. I will investigate Nexus...
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