Is it wise to eat Indian food before recording a session of brass antiphonal music? It doesn’t seem to slow the Grammy-nominated members of Canadian Brass, who are shoveling down curry during a brief break at a restaurant across the road from Christ Church Deer Park, on Toronto’s famous Yonge Street. The group is in town to record works by Italian Renaissance masters Giovanni Gabrieli and Claudio Monteverdi for what Brass co-founder Chuck Daellenbach calls a “brass player’s dream project.” To make it back to the church on time, it helps that Daellenbach isn’t toting his tuba as he dashes across the street.
Daellenbach has a reputation for being fast on his feet (he’s played the ferocious bull on stage in Bizet’s Carmen Suite) — a speed rivaled only by his quick fingers and quicker tongue. “A jolly tuba jokester” is how 23-year-old trumpeter/composer Brandon Ridenour, wearing the group’s trademark white sneakers, describes the veteran boomer brass man. Ridenour, still a student at Juilliard when he joined Canadian Brass, has been playing with the gang for three years, touring to Poland, China and Mexico. For this album, Daellenbach arranged a twenty-minute piece for brass quintet based on Monteverdi’s groundbreaking four-hundred-two-year-old opera Orfeo. It took him a summer to complete.
Daellenbach has seen thirty-nine summers as the front man of Canadian Brass. On plans for the group’s fortieth anniversary, he says, “reaching it” would be a fine thing. Leading up to that occasion, the stellar ensemble has decided to record a CD of seventeenth-century Venetian antiphonal music, where musicians are split into left and right halves of equal strength. Sopranos are placed farthest apart, followed by altos, tenors and, finally, basses. Fittingly, the working title of the CD is Echo. Up first is the Gabrieli, a piece for two brass choirs and organ. Eight brass sit on stage plus organist Eric Robertson, playing a 1982 Karl Wilhelm mechanical. His back is to the others, although an enlarged makeshift rear-view mirror affixed above the keyboard allows him to follow their lead. Daellenbach switches from tuba to the mellower bass flugelhorn, an instrument he doesn’t typically use but feels better captures the period. “Gabrieli was the first to explicitly designate instruments ‘per sonare,’ that is, ‘to be sounded.’ No keyboards or plucking here! This is authentic brass repertoire,” he says.
Why Gabrieli now? “We’re on a constant idea continuum. We just released a CD of music by Louis Armstrong and people asked, ‘Why did you wait so long?’ ” says Daellenbach. “This Renaissance music, the timing is just right. Simplicity is its secret. Without complex rhythms and harmonic changes, listeners can get lost in the beautiful sonorities.” But don’t accuse the music of being lightweight! “Music doesn’t have to be devalued to be soothing,” he adds.
Daellenbach is proud of Canadian Brass’s history braving this territory. “We have a reputation for exceeding expectations. We were the first brass group signed by a major label in the 1970s, and we take credit for pioneering what today is the popular genre known as ‘Classical Crossover.’ ” An acute awareness of their audience has kept them in demand on the concert circuit and a bestseller in stores.
“Stand by! Rolling! Canzon For 12, Take 1!” shouts producer Dixon Van Winkle, who has produced albums for Paul McCartney, Dizzy Gillespie, Elton John and Frank Sinatra. It’s clearly a privilege to have Van Winkle in the house. He’s traveled from upstate New York to produce this CD. When he’s in Toronto, he stays with Daellenbach, his friend and former roommate at Rochester’s Eastman School of Music. In conversation, he reveals that the boys were “kicked out of many an apartment.” When asked if it was for playing or partying, the straight-faced answer is: “Yes.”
“This is as nice as it gets,” says Van Winkle of the setup, “though technically, it’s tricky. I’m using crazy old vacuum microphones from 1945 to 1970. There’s not a new thing out there. The church sounds great, but I guarantee that nothing brings out the smooth, luscious sound of brass like a ribbon mic.” The production team is in front of the stage instead of in a separate room. “It’s unusual,” says Daellenbach, “but this way, they can act more like coaches.”
The head coach, or Tonmeister, is the fabulously spunky Mary Beth Daellenbach, an accomplished pianist and teacher who also happens to have been married to Chuck for more than twenty years, proving that musicians who play together sometimes really stay together. Mary Beth focuses on team pitch, dynamics and tempo. Her editorial comments range from “Best so far!” to “Too fast” to “Twenty percent more organ” to “truck rumble!” With the church so close to a thoroughfare, noise is a concern. The sound of page turns becomes moot as passing buses and blaring sirens threaten to interfere.
The biggest threat to the session is yet to come, however. French horn player Jeff Nelsen receives a shattering phone call: his father has passed away. Confusion ensues as he leaves the stage, comes back minutes later, sinks into his chair and covers his face.
