Music Reviews : Westwind Brass: Lost in a Sonic Fog

A big church can be an awesome place in which to hear an organ or a choir or, in the right repertory, a brass ensemble. However, Pasadena’s Westminster Presbyterian Church was a disastrous place in which to hear Westwind Brass on Sunday afternoon.

If this San Diego-based quintet wanted to blow majestic Gabrieli all afternoon, the locale might have worked out. But this fivesome thrives upon rapidly articulated, eclectic fare that was buried under a thick fog of reverberation--smudging the details, smearing the balances, turning almost everything into sonic mush.

The program of transcriptions sometimes bore a fleeting resemblance to what was announced in the handout. So did the personnel, who ultimately were David Sabon and Michael Walk (trumpets), Barry Toombs (horn), Ronald Robinson (trombone) and Ross Kallen (tuba).

Under these murky sonic circumstances, one could make out some pleasing details in Joseph Wilcox Jenkins’ boisterous “American Overture” and the plain-spun Americana of Verne Reynolds’ Theme and Variations. With a few ragged passages intruding, Holst’s Suite No. 1 for Band and Vaughan Williams’ “English Folk Song Suite” were dispatched briskly. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor contained a clumsy Toccata but a more convincing Fugue.

While the nimble 9/8 theme of Dave Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo a la Turk” fared well, the simulated jazz breaks were lamely handled. Toombs’ transcription of the Rondo from Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 3 turns it into a continuous hunting call, but Toombs himself could barely be heard over his colleagues. Blame the acoustics.