What a fun disc! Ferde Grofé is best known as the arranger of the full orchestra version of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, as well as for his own Grand Canyon Suite, which is very colorfully played and recorded by Stromberg and his British band. Okay, so it isn’t Bernstein or Ormandy (with the orchestras of New York and Philadelphia, respectively), nor does the performance feature Telarc’s authentic thunder from a real Arizona cloudburst, but it’s perfectly fine in its own right, and the couplings–two rare Grofé suites–are irresistible. The Mississippi Suite is comparatively slender, though no less tuneful and charming for that, but the Niagara Falls Suite is pretty substantial, and its last movement (“Power of Niagara”) contains some of the most colorful and sustained invention that Grofé ever produced–a delightful slice of Americana.
