pH Balanced Volume II: Mallets
A collection of Mallet Instrument Performances by Paul Hannah
$15.00
pH Balanced Volume II: Mallets is a project years in the making! Drawn from my various conservatory recitals, revisits and reimaginings of old friends, newer works from a rekindled love for mallets, and a reworking of a track I did for a friend.
“Scherzo Tarantelle” was a show piece that Vic Firth assigned me in school. Gordon Stout’s “2 Mexican Dances for Marimba” was a standard - almost a rite of passage back then. John Heiss’ “Capriccio” gets two performances - one from my NEC Senior Recital and the second from an NEC Contemporary Ensemble performance where I was a featured soloist.
We go to the Hartt School for the fiery “Musser Etude in Ab”, the Samuel Adler composition “4 Dialogues for Marimba and Euphonium” and the debut recording of Alexander Lepak’s “Concerto for Mallet Instruments”. I’m lucky there is a recording of the Concerto at all!!! The school audio department screwed up and didn’t record it! The recording here was taken from the Camcorder video! Apologies for quality but that’s all there is!
Next up are two Marimba and Vibraphone duets arranged by Kyle Maxwell-Dougherty from compositions by Chilly Gonzales. I recorded these at Kyle’s studio on his gorgeous 5 octave marimba and vibraphone.
I’ve always loved the Stout Mexican Dances and decided to work “Mexican Dance #1 for Marimba” back into shape after years away from seriously shedding mallets. I wrote an arrangement that is scalable from solo marimba with bass marimba and vibes all the way up to a huge percussion ensemble. I played all the parts and had a blast revisiting my old favorite!
The album closes with an arrangement of the Bill Withers’ tune “Lovely Day” done by Tony Kadleck. I played drums for Tony’s video and he allowed me to use his chart. I added vibraphone lead for the melody and improvised a bit near the end. Fun!
