Last’s tango impresses

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33966, 6 October 1975, Page 16

Last’s tango impresses

Hand - clapping, toetapping modern German music hall came to the Christchurch Town Hall last evening on the coattails of James Last.

It was a mixed bag of music and clothing for the orchestra, strings and choir, but its reception was anything but mixed. The sell-out audience loved it. First came the string section from Auckland, garbed in black dinner-jackets and long gowns. Then the band in their Neapolitan ice-cream suits — purple, pink, and blue. Something for everyone.

Attempts to blend pop, rock, and classical music too often come out like loud muzak, but the James Last

group does it with an enthusiasm that quickly leaps to the audience. Much of the sound resembles movie theme music, the kind you would expect to hear if you were a star and an invisible orchestra in the sky followed every movement and mood. Nothing to get excited about, unless you are the excitable sort. But then it is not meant to be. Last moved before the group like a pliable marionette, mouthing the words and rhythms, bobbing with the tangos. The Mitch Miller of European swing, he purveys an old formula well.

Sometimes the striving for a total sound does not work. The choir and the instruments clashed noisily at times, neither getting the upper hand. They were like stereo turned so loud it vibrates.

The audience did not seem to mind. They were lifted by the hot riffs and slid down the cooling string interludes. One piece, a rocking rendition of the “Exodus” theme, was a curious mixture of sporadic strings, Gene Krupa drums, and Jamaican reggae. It made “Exodus” sound like the opening credits to “Hawaii Five-O,” evoking images of surfboards and waves instead of Israeli sabras and sand. Roller-coaster rides of horns and drums were made even more frenetic by flashing lights. Even though the melding of varied music into a big band sound tends to slight the original music, the Christchurch audience had few complaints. For them, it was love at first slight. —S.D.