专辑简介

Listeners have very often been in contact with Richard Maltby’s skillful baton wielding, arranging prowess and expert trumpet work, but his proficiency as a composer has seldom been similarly highlighted. This album squares things in a thoroughly swinging manner. Here, for the first time, is a session of Maltby originals that reveal his writing talents for the hard-driving big band sounds as well as for ballads and mood pieces by particular instrumental combinations. The result is a rendezvous of incomparable entertainment as ‘Maltby Plays Maltby.’ The blaring, brass-wailing jump number has always been a Maltby standby… a great degree of creativity and inventiveness attributing to its success. In Long Island Fling, the locale has been changed from bonny Scotland to bustling Long Island, and the bagpipes have given way to brasses, but the zeal and ardor of the Maltby clan is as bright as ever. The same avidity is carried over to Flip, a rafter-rocking jump which features the instrumentation of solo jazz guitar, woodwinds, brass and a few bells thrown in for good measure. The style, drive and tremendous upbeat found in Maltby compositions really comes to the fore in Walkie-Talkie, a novelty that doesn’t let up for a single moment. Another electronic instrument, somewhat larger in dimensions, is the subject of a Maltby interpretation that analyzes radiant energy musically. This animated Mass Spectrograph is part of the maestro’s ingenious ‘Nuclear Suite.’ The genesis of a song is fully explored in Birth Of A Melody, in which the alto sax carries the blue note as a haunting refrain tells of the tears, heartache and tribulations that might materialize with any creative effort. Being a universal expression, the blues are also found on the instrumental ballad side. A lonely clarinet calls through the darkness, forlorn, wistful and appealing… an isolated voice among the unfriendly caverns of the city. Buddy DeFranco is the soloist behind the clarinet, softly singing and sighing the blues in Lost In The Night (Ballad For Clarinet). In the gently swinging Ballad For Two Altos, the headliners are Hymie Schertzer and ‘Toots’ Mondello, and the equally lovely Ballad For Three Oboes, chalks up another success on the Maltby scoreboard. In the brass department, the haunting notes of a trombone tell a familiar love story, once lived and oft remembered. Will Bradley, the king of slip-born virtuosity, provides the undulating rhythms and mellow interpretation in Ballad For Trombone. The same mood abides, but the odds are upped as trumpets and trombones join Will to narrate musically a Ballad For Twelve Brass, a melancholy story in a minor-key – blues, sentiment, even satire can be found in this, another fine example of ‘Maltby Plays Maltby.’