Olivia Kieffer | 3 SEP 2021
No Strings Attached: Percussion Music by Marc Mellits
Philadelphia Percussion + Piano Project, Phillip O’Banion, director
Release: August 20, 2021
Label: BCM+D Records
Duration: ca. 49 minutes
On August 20th, 2021, BCM+D Records released an album of the music of Anerican composer Marc Mellits. No Strings Attached: Percussion Music by Marc Mellits comes from the Philadelphia Percussion + Piano Project, and was recorded at Philadelphia’s own Temple University.
Philip O’Banion, artistic director of Percussion at the Boyer College of Music and Dance at Temple University, is also the director of the Philadelphia Percussion + Piano Project. The ensemble includes a variety of local percussionists and pianists, and uses whoever is needed depending on the project or concert. This is the group’s second full length album, after Radiant Outbursts: (In Human Progress).
Black is Mellits’ most popular piece of music. It was originally written for two bass clarinets, but has been arranged for sax quartet, two baritone saxes, keyboard duets, and now marimba quartet. Timbrally, the marimba quartet version is so far removed from the original for bass clarinets that it really ought to have a new title. It sounds great as a mallet quartet, and the harmonies and melodies that Mellits added to this arrangement are perfect. It’s an outstanding addition to the percussion ensemble repertoire. The performers on Black are Griffin Harrison, Alonzo Davis, Jake Strovel and Adam Rudisill.
No Strings Attached, for which the album is named, was transcribed by Mellits for mallet quartet at the request of O’Banion. No Strings Attached was originally written for the Auchincloss Piano. To create this instrument, Howard Auchincloss digitized the sound of an 18th century pianoforte. According to Mellits, only three of these instruments were ever made, so the piece has not been performed often. This is the premiere recording of Mellits’ mallet quartet version of the piece. Christopher Deviney and Phillip O’Banion play vibraphone, and Angela Zator Nelson and William Wozniak are on marimbas.
Movement one, “Splifficated Mustard,” starts out with a funky bass marimba groove, followed shortly by vibraphones, and plays on variations of this theme throughout. “Stiletto Crunch,” the second movement, is just good ol’ fashioned fun! The third movement, “This Side of Twilight,” sounds like an intergalactic music box. Movement 4, “Curried Kafka,” is absolutely gorgeous with its rolling chords and endless suspensions. The last movement, “Quarks & Leptons,” is best enjoyed driving in the rain. I can’t imagine what the original on Auchincloss Piano sounds like, but “No Strings Attached” for mallet quartet is just tremendous. I hope that many more groups are inspired to play this piece.
Composer Marc Mellits
The only piece on the album with piano is Troica, which was originally written for flute (or violin), guitar (or electric guitar or piano), and marimba (or piano). Mellits arranged this album’s trio version for Lucas Conant (vibraphone) Caleb Breidenbaugh (marimba), and Emilyrose Ristine (piano). Troica is reminiscent of an actual magical sleigh ride in the snow that Mellits took many years ago with his future wife, in Romania. Speckles of Debussy’s Arabesque appear throughout.
Red is Mellits’ most popular marimba duet. Its six movements are titled “I. Moderately Funky,” “II. Fast, Aggressive, Vicious,” “III. Moderate, with motion,” “IV. Slow, with motion,” “V. Moderate, with motion,” and “VI. Fast, Obsessive, Bombastic, Red.” The titles describe the music quite well. Phillip O’Banion and Lucas Conant perform this piece beautifully, and they really bring out the life in the piece. There are several great recordings of Red, but this one stands out.
O’Banion and Conant recording “Red.” (credit: Joseph V. Labolito)
The performers on Gravity are Myungji Kim and Caleb Breidenbaugh on vibraphones, Lucas Conant and Zach Strickland on marimba, and Emilyrose Ristine on bass marimba. The tempos that the ensemble chose are blisteringly fast; often 10 to 30 clicks beyond what the composer wrote and intended to be groovy. It’s like listening to a 33⅓ RPM vinyl record that got turned up to 45. The groove just isn’t there.
Gravity could have been left off the album, especially since it’s a beloved and well-established piece in the percussion repertoire, and there are superior recordings available. If this is a listener’s introduction to Mellits’ joyful and exuberant keyboard percussion quintet masterpiece, it can at least be enjoyed for its novelty as the most frenetic performance of Gravity out there today.
No Strings Attached is a gift to not only the percussion community, but to anyone who listens. It’s a delight to hear Mellits’ new renditions of his own music, and to hear the title piece No Strings Attached for the first time. Listeners who have never heard Mellits’ music will be left stunned with its beauty, vulnerability, clarity, and unbridled joy. Readers might be able to tell I am an enormous Mellits fan. If I could add to the album cover one of those foam baseball pointy fingers that says “#1” I would! ■
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