This episode is filled with banger after banger, and even managed to find some more Lawrence Welk Orchestra recordings of their great trombone section, after lots of people enjoyed ‘Little Girl’ from BBTM #6.
The aim of these blog posts is to dive in a little deeper into the charts and why they sound so good.
23°N 82°W – Stan Kenton Orchestra
This piece is William Russo’s most requested work. The 5 trombones are blasting out 3 different low melodies, with a lot of a very satisfying F’s and Bb’s. One thing to notice is that when the third melody is introduced, there is no quaver which a trombone isn’t playing in, giving it this forward momentum.
I Thought About You – US Army Blues Jazz Ensemble
This recording is sublime, the bass trombone, played by Jeff Cortazzo, really does make your head vibrate with those stanky low notes. Other trombonists featured on this tune are Bill Holmes, Harry Watters, and the arranger and lead trombone, Matt Niess.
My favourite bit from this soli is from the climax after the first 16 bars. All the trombones leap into the high register with this tasty, laid-back phrase. The lead trombone goes chromatically up and down in these first 2 bars, where you would expect the other trombone parts to do the same. However, we have the 2nd and 3rd bone going back down to their first note and the 4th bone staying on their Eb. The slight variety of intervals makes each part stand on its own.
The tight voicing of the bottom 3 trombones (landing on G, F, and Eb) also makes this moment even juicier to the ears.
East of the Sun & West of the Moon – Lawrence Welk Orchestra
After finding Little Girl performed by this Orchestra, I have always been on the lookout for more from these guys. They absolutely love to vib!
Although the arrangement maybe simple, the last bars saw all the trombones rising a whole octave on this Db6 chord. The voicing of this chord is perfect, with the tonic on top and the 6th a third underneath the lead (Bb).
Monopoly – WDR Big Band
This piece a whole features Pasquale Grasso on guitar, and I always love to feature some WDR Big Band on these videos as the recording and playing are always super high-quality.
One thing I noticed with this soli was how often the occurance of Major 7th and Minor 2nd intervals were featured. They sound especially good on trombones due to the extremely bluesly nature of them. One place that features this the most is from bar 13 of the trombone soli.
March of the Tadpoles – Toshiko Akiyoshi Lew Tabackin Big Band
Blimey this is fast…
Apart from these light-speed passages we get through out, there are definetely alot of interesting arrangement choices from Toshiko Akiyoshi.
Towards the end of the soli, from bar 65-66, the 1st and 3rd trombone are in unison as well as the 2nd and 4th bone, apart from them being an octave apart. The unison helps it to feel like a really triumphant moment in the piece.
Also, the fast gliss up the harmonics can all be played in 2nd and 3rd position with the 1st and 3rd parts, giving the reason for how fast the players go through these notes, as they don’t need to move the slide much. With the 2nd and 4th parts, it’s pretty similar, apart from starting on a Db in 5th position, but they can gliss up the harmonics in 6th and 7th position, as shown with positions below.
Jed R Music 