Joe Novotny & NYPO-WOW

[Chuck Jackson]

On the complete Young Persons Concerts DVD's is a complete performance of Sensemaya. Joe Novotny sounds absolutely incredible as does the entire orchestra. The brass is crisp, bright, and up front and the percussion is drop dead on. Novotny gets more sound out of his King/Meinl than most guys get out of a BAT.There are some great shots of Bill Bell in the earlier ones. He sounds terrific as does the brass section. Great to see these testaments to a great orchestra and conductor out on DVD.

[Haugan]

I think a great many of today's players would appreciate this kind of sound as opposed to the York and York-copy style horns that are so popular today. The King is anything but small sounding, as many might be led to believe. I find in some ways the King has a dense quality of sound that leads one to believe it could be a tuba of the same dimensions of the York, simply approached with a different tonal concept on the part of the player. Those who have never closely examined the older NYP recordings of Novotny & Bell, as well as Abe Totchinsky's work in the Philadelphia Orchestra (incidentally Mr. T. generally feels that the Columbia recording engineers tended to "short-change" him in mixing the Philly recordings) would do well to reexamine thier thoughts as to what an ideally functioning tuba sound is. There is certainly room for more than one type of tone colour on the bottom of the brass section (or orchestra) and these types of horns probably shouldn't be so summarily dismissed as "old fashioned" or "outdated". I was for many years a student of Arnold Jacobs, and LOVED the sound he got out of his big York, but it was thrilling to hear the NYP live in those years as well - simply a different approach. I would like to think there is still room for as many different sounds as there are players, it seems to me that no reason should exist for a consistancy of tuba sound from orchestra to orchestra.

[Chuck Jackson]

As a person who "came of age" in the NYC area (I always catch a glimpse of my father, sister and I at one of the concerts) that sound defined me and defined orchestral playing for me throughout my playing career and still does as a conductor. There is always definition and a definitive start to a note, there is never a "blossom" to the sound, loud or soft. The dynamics are greater. And I say "is" because these recordings still are very much 'alive" in the catalogue. A horn does not give you a big sound, that is inherent in who you are, but a horn will allow you a certain amount of flexibility. The Kings and Bell Models give you something to blow against (some resistance always was preferable to me) and you never had to wrestle the instrumentsto play them. That's just me, but it fit my concept as ingrained in that training ground. I have no opinion on the current "arms race", to each his own, but no one can say that the NYPO of the 50's, 60's, and 70's didn't play as fat and big as anyone in the country, then OR now. It comes back to the person not the horn. Rant complete.