Big Band Trombone Moments #7

All recordings and downloads of the seventh episode of the series!

Welcome to another episode BBTM, where we take a look at some lesser-known pieces with some rather satisfying bone moments

The aim of these blog posts is to dive in a little deeper into the charts and why they sound so good.

Bag’a Bones – Count Basie Orchestra

Composed and arranged by Neal Hefti, this piece features on an album called Basie Plays Hefti, alongside famous charts like Cute and Pony Tail. It was recorded in 1958, where the version of Bag’a Bones is a little slower than what we have in the above live performance.

The arrangement has the trombones in unison for the beginning of the piece, where we see this fast and difficult gliss up 2 octaves (you can hear some players splitting it!) It makes for a very effective and dramatic opening statement.

A Step Beyond – Towson State University Jazz Ensemble

This recording is the best version I could find of the soli, which makes sense as it the ensemble is directed by J. Hank Levy himself! With this version, you also might be able to tell that it’s about half a semitone flat, probably due to the nature of the recording. In my video, I re-tuned it, which made it a lot easier to transcribe.

A Shade of Jade – The Airmen of Note

This whole chart is extremely challenging for everyone involved, with tricky syncopation and harmonies everywhere. In this stellar recording of the always great Airmen of Note, we hear the bari sax replaced by a very juicy bass saxophone.

Malaga – Central Washington University Jazz Band 1

This university big band are fantastic, even the recording quality is great. We have featured this band in a previous episode with the trombone soli on A Little Minor Booze.

Last Christmas – The WDR Big Band Trombones

I had to get a bit of Christmas stuff involved!

This piece is arranged by the bass trombone player in the recording, Mattis Cederberg, and it provides a very fresh, fun take of the usually overplayed Christmas classic.