This CD is another excellent example of the fine performance standards to be found at American colleges and universities. The recording takes its name from Wallingford Riegger's Dance Rhythms, a piece that sounds just as refreshing today as it did in 1955, when it was composed. This too seldom performed work receives a first rate reading here. Two compositions by Frank Ticheli also receive excellent performances. His Blue Shades which combines jazz elements with Ticheli's own compositional style, nicely avoids all of the problems of the old Third Stream Music, and truly integrates the two styles to form a most enjoyable work. Ticheli's Sun Dance is also a nicely written work, full of exuberant Americanism; however, it does not include much that one has not already heard. The Australian composer Ralph Hultgren is likewise represented with two compositions, Bushdance and Masada. Although Bushdance is not great music, it contains some charming as well as unabashedly Romantic writing, excellently arranged and wonderfully scored. Masada attempts to be much too programmatic. Its exuberant "dance" theme representing the zeal of the Hebrews is most appealing; however, the material used to represent the power and majesty of Rome is pure Hollywood.
The CD also includes compositions by Steven Bryant, Norman Dello Joio and Bruce Yurko. In Chester Leaps In, Steven Bryant constantly interrupts his own frenetic, twisting chromatic theme with William Billing's choral tune Chester, providing comic contrast to an otherwise austere work of two minutes and forty seconds. Dello Joio's wonderful Satiric Dances are given a good, clean performance that is a little too nice; a somewhat more "satiric" reading would seem appropriate. The CD concludes with Bruce Yurko's Night Dances, a work composed for ten percussionists and a huge inventory of percussion instruments. The work itself is rather uneven, with some very good writing but also with some weaker sections. However, if you wish a recording of some very excellent playing of some exciting "dance rhythms" this is just the CD for you.
