CD REVIEW
– THE
BEST OF 'MAKE WAY FOR MUSIC'
Featuring the BBC Northern Dance
Orchestra
2-CD set - Total
Playing Time approx. 117 minutes
The NDO Project – CD 213 /
214
Readers may recall
that, a while ago, I wrote a
review of a 2-CD set issued by
The NDO Project, which included a
short history of the latter, and
featured the BBC Midland Light
and Midland Radio Orchestras.
I have recently
received another set – The
Best Of 'Make Way For Music'
– from Ian Reed, who founded
the Project. He has now produced
a total of thirteen CDs featuring
several different BBC 'house'
orchestras, although mainly
concentrating on the
Manchester-based Northern Variety
Orchestra, and its successors,
the Northern Dance Orchestra and
the Northern Radio Orchestra.
Most of these recordings were
made well over fifty – or in
a good number of cases sixty
– years ago.
Make Way For
Music was a long-running
series, which showcased the
considerable talents and
versatility of the musicians of
the Northern Dance Orchestra. The
show began life in 1956 –
when the NDO was formed – as
a popular weekly radio programme,
under its original conductor,
Alyn Ainsworth. A very successful
transition to BBC Television was
also made in the late 1950s and
the NDO came to be rightfully
regarded by its many fans as the
best 'Big Band' in the UK.
The radio version
continued to run until well into
the 1960s. In the 1970s, BBC
producer Peter Pilbeam, who had
worked as a sound supervisor on
some of the TV broadcasts,
revived MWFM as a series of
public concerts for radio. [Peter
has been Ian Reed's collaborator
since the Project's inception,
along with their researcher, the
late Rod Cotter, to whom this
compilation is dedicated]. These
concerts were a great success,
and the band performed to full
houses for almost all the series,
doing what it did best –
playing to live audiences.
The show was
unique and ground-breaking –
it wasn’t just great music
on offer, but included plenty of
– often somewhat eccentric
– announcements and jokes
from Roger Moffat, together with
his interactions with members of
the band and producer Barney
Colehan. Sometimes these were
'tongue-in-cheek', sometimes
downright rude – but Roger
generally managed to 'get away
with it', and there were many
laughs during the sessions.
Apparently, the band was full of
comedians, who were not averse to
playing practical jokes on each
other and sometimes on
unsuspecting visiting artistes as
well !
In addition to
regular vocalists Sheila Buxton
and Les Howard, the programme
played host to many guests,
including the organist Jimmy
Leach, the pianist Mrs. Mills,
vocalist Ronnie Hilton and many
others. Several members of the
band were regularly featured as
soloists, including Johnny
Roadhouse and Roger Fleetwood
(saxes), Norman George (violin)
and Ken Frith (piano). On
occasion, a sub-group would
perform as 'The Trad Lads'
Some of the tracks
on CD 2 feature the 'Augmented
NDO', the orchestra then being
supplemented by a sizeable string
section made up of professional
musicians who regularly played in
local symphony orchestras.
Both CDs contain
compilations of material drawn
from various MWFM broadcasts,
digitally remastered and edited
together by Ian Reed. They play
continuously (i.e. without
numbered tracks) so as to
simulate two actual shows,
complete – of course –
with Roger Moffat's
announcements, etc.
CD1 contains early
recordings conducted by Alyn
Ainsworth and guest conductor,
George Clouston. It also features
a rare chat about the programme
between Roger Moffat, Alyn
Ainsworth and Bernard Herrmann,
the latter being appointed
permanent conductor a short time
after Ainsworth had stepped down
and left the BBC in 1961.
CD 2 contains
later recordings, taken from live
outside broadcasts and
performances in the Playhouse
Theatre, Manchester, which was
the NDO's regular venue; these
were all conducted by Bernard
Herrmann.
From the
beginning, the NDO employed the
services of some very talented
arrangers, who regularly
contributed to what must have
been a sizeable library of
numbers for the orchestra to
perform, which it did most
admirably.
Listening to these
wonderfully-restored recordings,
it seemed as if one was being
transported back via the
proverbial 'time machine', to an
era when quality live music was a
staple fare of BBC Radio almost
seven days a week.
This CD set
deserves to be in every
enthusiast's collection. Along
with a number of other previous
issues, it may be obtained only
from The NDO Project. Full
details are on its website:-
www.northerndanceorchestra.org.uk
Or by email:-
ndoinfo@virginmedia.com
? Tony
Clayden 2021
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