PLAYING with a world-class soloist can bring out the best in other musicians, as the audience found out when trombonist Brett Baker joined forces with Flookburgh Band.

The performance of Baker, solo trombone player with the famous Black Dyke Mills Band was spectacular

in itself and included Langford' s Rhapsody for Trombone which explores the entire range and texture of the instrument, the haunting high-range melodies Ye Banks and Braes and Evergreen, as well as the tour-de-force Hailstorm, with its rapid passages which are normally the province of top class cornet players.

Yet it was probably the concert as a whole that the audience will remember, for the band hit the high notes in its own performance.

From the opening march The Cossack to the closing notes of Friedman's dramatic Slavonic Rhapsody, Flookburgh demonstrated just how high musical director John Iveson, a virtuoso trombonist in his own right, has lifted standards of musicianship and performance.

The programme toured the vast range of styles that the modern brass band can encompass, from the big band swing sound of New York New York to Lloyd Webber melodies such as Memory and Love Changes Everything.

There were old standards like the Calamity Jane selection, full of hit tunes of its day, to the scintillating modern movie theme Superman..

Dipping into the classics the band played the rapid opening to the first act of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and also featured the complete trombone section along with Brett Baker and John Iveson in an arrangement of The Irish Washerwoman.

DA

The award-winning Flookburgh Band joins Flookburgh Operatic Society for an evening of music at Holker Village Hall tomorrow (Saturday, (7:30pm).