Jack Stamp (b. 1954)
Chamber Music Volume One: Music for Wind and Strings
Uptown Brass
rec. 2022-23, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Toccata Classics TOCC0687 [73]
The American composer Jack Stamp is a composer who inhabits the worlds of symphonic band (wind and brass groupings) ensembles. He has enjoyed particular attention in the USA. His music is approachable and when the half-enchanted listener approaches it welcomes. The notes step effortlessly from Sondheim/Tunick sassy, to grave and epigrammatic along the lines of Nino Rota, to Copland-style open skies, bluffs and mesas – a touch of The Outdoor Overture and The Tender Land. The music is put across to the listener in utterly superb sound.
Stamp’s litany of teachers includes Danielpour, Diamond, Tull, Corporon and Tower. Born in Washington DC, his higher studies were conducted in the universities of Indiana and East Carolina. A crucial directing ‘wheel’ in the USA’s many wind-bands and, slightly less numerous, brass bands, all this time he has been a productive creator of compositions for his chosen medium. As he reminds us – he wrote the extended and accessible programme note for the disc – six of the nine works here were related to Stamp’s friendship with Charles (Chuck) Lazarus, trumpeter from the Minnesota Orchestra.
The exact opposite of a self-centred musician, Stamp has recorded many wind band discs. Included amongst them are selections of music by Leroy Anderson, Alfred Reed, William Schuman, H. Owen Reed, Norman Dello Joio, Samuel Adler and Robert Ward.
Stamp’s music – as reflected in these scores written between 2017 and 20022 – is effervescently fresh and often bubblingly melodious. It is strikingly open in texture without being stark. The first three pieces are single movements. Mt. Olive Fanfare for brass quintet (2022) effortlessly manipulates the high striving trumpet with the lower register instruments. There may be a touch of Praetorius in there but overwhelmingly this is of the moment. The Concertino for Brass Quintet and Chamber Orchestra sounds dashing and has some of the citrus sharpness of the string sinfonietta by Franz Waxman. There’s a trace of the Bernard Herrmann pursuit about this overture length score and much is made of a playful chiaroscuro with yielding strings. This cedes place to some calming dreaminess before the Bernstein switch is clicked at 3:20. A Craic Situation for brass quintet brings into play the same elements but in a score just over seven minutes long. Stamp takes the word ‘craic’ and here reads it as meaning good fun; the music fits this specification.
The finale of Suite Madera (tr. 7) is tensely toe-tapping and some capsicum is deftly woven in. The short A Lost Friendship breaks with the wind ‘habit’ and gives us an implacably sorrowing string trio wedded to a single movement structure. Lord Keep Us Steadfast returns to his alma mater with a short hymn of piety. Again the wind quintet is employed for Red Cedar Lake suite. In four movements: I. Early Morning Loons on Red Cedar Lake (remember Hovhaness’s late symphony on the same subject); II. Seagulls Dancing on Red Cedar Lake; III. Eagles on Red Cedar Lake and IV. Sunset on Red Cedar Lake. These four are miniatures. The first certainly feels like a short tone poem. A Waltonian crackle and snap grips the second. Eagles on Red Cedar Lake returns to the contemplative absorbed style of the first movement and this carries over into the final segment. The five movement Suite for Unaccompanied Solo Trumpet is as nakedly exposed as you might expect. That said, buffets and breezes register most movingly and Stamp knows better than to keep this solo instrument from running beyond 2:28 per movement; most are around 1:30. The composer ends with the cheek-inflating excitingly atrabilious Revenge. The Concertino for Trumpet and Jazz Ensemble in part flexes its jazzy pectorals in the longest single movement structure on the disc. Commanding eminences, toe-tapping rhythms and poetic moments are all elements by now familiar from the other pieces – and added to this are aspects of the high-altitude flowering style and heart’s-ease adopted by Bill Conti in his music for Dynasty and Mike Post in his theme for Hill Street Blues.
These are all first recordings of music that will hold your attention. The performances are either by the original intended players or by musicians whose temperaments and skills are a good match to those of the composer.
Rob Barnett
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Contents
Mt. Olive Fanfare for brass quintet (2022)
Concertino for Brass Quintet and Chamber Orchestra (2021)
A Craic Situation for brass quintet (2021)
Suite Madera for wind quintet (2017)
A Lost Friendship for string trio (2022)
Lord, Keep Us Steadfast for brass quintet (2021)
Red Cedar Lake Suite for brass quintet (2021)
Suite for unaccompanied solo trumpet (2022)
Concertino for Trumpet and Jazz Ensemble (2020)
Other performers
Mill City Chamber Players
Hideaway Wind Quintet
Whittier String Trio
University of Minnesota Jazz Ensemble/Jack Stamp & Dean Sorenson
