It was an excellent idea for Marco Polo to include in their British Light Music series a CD of items by composers who, for one reason or another, are unlikely to have a whole disc to themselves but who contributed something significant to the British Light Music catalogue. Pieces such as Anthony Collins's Vanity Fair, Armstrong Gibbs's Dusk, Benjamin Frankel's Carriage and Pair, Arthur Benjamin's ''Jamaican Rumba'' (here intelligently linked with its companion piece ''Jamaican Song''), Elgar's Beau Brummel Minuet and Geoffrey Toye's waltz from The Haunted Ballroom are examples of well-known pieces by musicians whose renown also extended to a higher plain. Vivian Ellis's Coronation Scot (for the Paul Temple series) and Edward White's Puffin' Billy (for Children's Favourites) are instrumental pieces that gained popularity through their use as radio signature tunes. Robert Docker's boisterous Tabarinage, Harry Dexter's delicate Siciliano, Gilbert Vinter's exciting Portuguese Party, George Melachrino's swinging Starlight Roof Waltz and Clive Richardson's jaunty Beachcomber are pieces that have become no less familiar through radio and other light music channels.
The emphasis of the programme is very much on shorter, lighter, brighter pieces, and the most obvious criticism of the collection might be that it represents almost too much of a good thing. Ernest Tomlinson conducts with affection bred of thorough familiarity with the genre.'