Gimme Some Horns!

Recently, I've been spending some time going through old cassette recordings of jewish wedding music, largely from the '80's, in a garage cleaning effort. Re-listening to these tracks, one thing in particular stands out, compared to today's Chasidic wedding recordings; the incredible nuances in the horn tracks on the albums I'm checking out. There is some seriously great horn playing here, especially the tightly phrased section work, which is well-harmonized, and articulated as a unit. So much richer than the typical arrangements heard today. I imagine a large part of this is due to the frequency of the gigs -- these guys worked together at weddings every night, not just in the studio -- and the emphasis on section harmony playing, which is somewhat of a lost art on simcha bandstands these days. Some really nice work here!