Alex Payler
Alex Payler
October 1st 2011
Alex opened the evening with the main theme from 'Superman', a super arrangement and set to a red and blue background, of course. Changing the mood to a classical piece and ignoring the time of day, the sounds of the oboe filled the hall, intermingled with strings, it was 'Morning' by Grieg from the Peer Gynt Suite.
A big band number next in the shape of 'Skyliner' by Charley Barnet, a lively number. Latin American numbers always go down well with the audience, 'Mas Que Nada', played to a bossa rhythm, was no exception.
Then Carmen appeared with her castanets, 'Habanera' was played with a lot of feeling and expression. The saxophone, piano, strings and whistle - and Natalie Cole - all featured in 'Unforgettable'.
We get a lot repeats of films on the screen around Christmas time, the 'Great Escape' is one of them.
Time to be patriotic with Elgar's 'Nimrod', beautifully played with rich strings. I expect some of you have been to Disneyworld, happy memories of those times must have been brought back with 'When You Wish Upon A Star' - 'Be Our Guest' - 'Under The Sea and It's A Small World', the first and last of this medley played at the same on the upper and lower keyboard respectively. Well done Alex.
'Somewhere Out There' was hugely popular when it first came out, it broke all sorts of records and was played by Alex literally with some heavenly choir voices. Gorgeous! A
nother popular piece with its rings and the return of the carriage was, of course, 'The Typewriter' by LeRoy Anderson.
We don't hear 'The Firedance' (from Riverdance) played by anybody on the circuit. It's at the stage where the flamenco dancer comes onto the stage; obviously this was set to a red background with flashing reds to represent the licking flames, all courtesy of Keith, our lighting wizard! Suitably refreshed we were ready to commence the second half with 'Golden Eye', a big orchestral arrangement. Birds were happily tweeting in the next arrangement, yes, all the animals were gathering to greet the new 'Lion King'.
Blue and purple colours set the scene for 'Cry Me A River', it featured a super breathy saxophone. 'Once Upon A Time In The West' was a super film and had some great music in it, Alex playing us the main theme from this, incorporating some strings and choral voices. 'The 1941 March' by John Williams reminded us of the attack on Pearl Harbour.
Alex, on the EL900, then played us another piece of film music, this time the flying theme from 'ET', with Alan Scanes on the video camera allowing us a close up glimpse of Alex's pedal work. Feeling brassed off in toytown?, yes, it was time for the 'Parade of the Tin Soldiers', with some wonderful brass sounds on the organ.
I mentioned the Midnight Tango show last time, 'Libertango', a proper Argentinian Tango, has become very popular and is quite difficult to dance by the looks of it.
Alex certainly knew how to put together the very distinctive Carpenter sounds and say 'Goodbye to Love'. The 'Bolero' by Ravel has always had huge appeal, this was further enhanced when Torvill and Dean danced this routine at the Sarajevo Olympics and always features in the final of the Dancing On Ice Show.
The audience were soon asking for 'more', Alex delighted us with 'Splanky' for the encore - great.
What a super evening of music we had enjoyed, thank you so much Alex. You entertained us with a good rounded program, most enjoyable.