TromboneChat

In classical music nearly everyone practices orchestral excerpts. Never seen that in jazz so far and of course it's a total different thing and the importance of practicing those excerpts is much higher in the classical music business than the jazz business.

But I was still wondering, maybe we could come up with a list of some important jazz trombone excerpts that everyone should know?

Starting off with:
Song of India - Tommy Dorsey
Tiptoe - Thad Jones

I'd add "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You". In D and in Bb. Apparently Dorsey used both. Probably in D to open and in Bb to close. The Bb version sounds more elegiac to me, while the D version sounds like a promise of more to come.

From the Dixieland songbook:
Tiger Rag (learn the effects)
Basin Street Blues
Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans

Probably lots more.

This:



And this:

Andrea made some videos about this that I shared on here.

Isn't that kind of what the Real Books are? There are so many more jazz/pop songs than interesting classical pieces...

Please educate me. We learn classical excerpts because they often show up on auditions.

What kinds of things show up on auditions for Big Bands?

Hi folks .

What Aidan wrote above . Check Andrea' YouTube channel for more .

I think that section' soli could be more "excerpts like" than songs , being that soli were written for trombone in particular .

As Duke Ellington' " Braggin in Brass " :


Regards
Giancarlo

Duke's Sonnet to Hank Cinq:
Willie Maiden's A Little Minor Booze:
Dave Barduhn's arrangement of My Funny Valentine:

On a big band audition you'd might have to do some sightreading, play over a standard, sightread / "sighthear" some changes, maybe some other stuff. I know some auditions for school would want the performance of a transcription.

Minor Booze is good for bass bone also - not just the soli, but the end too (can you bury a low B?).

BGuttman wrote: ↑Sun Mar 10, 2024 4:54 pm We learn classical excerpts because they often show up on auditions.

Sad but true... But a lot of the ones that show up on auditions are:
1. exposed
and/or
2. soloistic
and/or
3. technically demanding
and/or
4. from repertoire that gets played "frequently"

For bass bone, I've been trying to think of things that fit all of those categories, and the only one that comes to mind is Sinatra - Under My Skin. It's definitely exposed, soloistic (not doubled in the bari), and for me has come up comparatively frequently. The technical demand isn't extreme, but it's not that easy to get a consistent sound on every note and interesting color and be right in the pocket for time and be able to crescendo enough to keep that line heard even after everything else has piled on.



Plenty of others meet some but not all of those criteria. I practice this one occasionally just because the intro is so freaking hard (WDR - 4711 Special):

braggin in brass soli, all parts
tiptoe soli
count bubbas soli
mean what you say soli
a little minor booze soli

theres definitely more but these are the ones ive seen more than a couple of times in different bands

For bass trombone some Herbolzheimer arrangements might fit, e.g. the Girl Talk arrangement. As far as I know most of it written for Erik van Lier.

Two quick observations:

1. In jazz there is less studying excerpts and more transcribing and studying improvised solos.

2. I've played in ten billion big bands (it feels like), amateur and professional, and I've never seen an audition outside of schools. So I doubt that happens much in the real world.

Metropole Orkest (which is basically a bigband) in NL just had an opening for 1st trombone and there are auditions (quite similar to the classical ones, with curtain) for that. From what I've seen, there were also auditions for some of the US Army bigbands in the past.

The idea with my post was more like, which bigband or large ensemble parts are real classics/must-knows that are played often and players should know when called for bigband gigs. I've played Tiptoe by Thad Jones for example with several bigbands and often wished that my colleagues would have once practiced the part properly so they can really play it. I had a teacher who was like: When I wake you up at 4am, you should be able to play that part without thinking about it.

tbdana wrote: ↑Mon Mar 11, 2024 9:15 am 2. I've played in ten billion big bands (it feels like), amateur and professional, and I've never seen an audition outside of schools. So I doubt that happens much in the real world.

Like many of you (I suppose), my "auditions" for big bands, amateur and professional, have consisted of sitting in at a rehearsal (or gig). If I could cut the part (almost every time so far ) I was invited back to join the band.

Auditions are much less common in the big band scene, but having to sight read a gig is much more common. I think this would be a great project - DMA dissertation anyone?

Difficult charts I've seen in a couple of different big band books:
as already mentioned: Tip Toe
Ellington - Cottontail
Oliver Nelson - Blues and the Abstract Truth
Whatever the most commonly played arrangement is of Chick Corea's Spain, maybe?

For bass trombone specifically, that Under My Skin that was mentioned is a big one. I would add Quincy Jones' Robot Portrait for the same reason - not all that difficult, but exposed and telling and may earn (or cost) you the gig.

I know full scores of Maria Schneider's early albums were published - a lot of that would make for great big band "excerpt" practice.

For big-band arrangements featuring the trombone section, I can recommend these. Because of the length of my list, I haven't posted links. Probably all may be found on YouTube.
"Back Bone," Thad Jones
"Connecting the Bones," Ernie Wilkins
"It's Alright [sic.] With Me," Kenichi Tsunoda
"Just Friends," Masaru Uchibori
"On the Sunny Side of the Street," John Clayton
"Valve Job," Frank Como
Some may be unpublished, but I can furnish information where these and most of the pieces mentioned by other individuals can be acquired.

It's not on the list of everyone's favorites but IMHO it definitely qualifies for an "excerpt" in terms of how often it is screwed up:

the opening bars of In The Mood, 1st trombone.

Bass bone again (not just the opening, also 1:28)

Posaunus wrote: ↑Mon Mar 11, 2024 11:44 am

tbdana wrote: ↑Mon Mar 11, 2024 9:15 am 2. I've played in ten billion big bands (it feels like), amateur and professional, and I've never seen an audition outside of schools. So I doubt that happens much in the real world.

Like many of you (I suppose), my "auditions" for big bands, amateur and professional, have consisted of sitting in at a rehearsal (or gig). If I could cut the part (almost every time so far ) I was invited back to join the band.

Yeah, the only real excerpt for big band is sight-reading, and that's likely to be when you're covering for one of the regulars. Or in the rehearsal just before the gig. Or the entire gig.

But I'm enjoying the thought-exercise of trying to identify stuff that might make the rounds and is either tough or fun to work on.

How about the Ellington Nutcracker? Played pretty often, and that plunger stuff in the lead is a freaking nightmare.

I think most military auditions now give you the music in advance. My Note audition was 100% sightreading stuff I'd never seen. You can pretty much count on some true sightreading on any military audition.
But as others have said, any actual gig may include sightreading on the gig, and it needs to be close to perfect or you won't get asked back. But anything that is reasonable "standard repertoire" you should already know. Even if you don't have the music, listen to recordings to be familiar with the lines and style.

Ellington Nutcracker is something you definitely need to listen to... reading the part doesn't tell you much about how to play it. Same goes for any of the Dorsey solos. For example, nobody really cares whether you use a SoloTone mute on Song of India... but they do care whether you play the right notes and style.

Having played long Rat Pack tours, I sure wished that some of the subs had listened to those guys before turning up on the gig

When I was in school at Ball State, Larry McWilliams (jazz studies director back then) put together books of big band excerpts for the horns and I think also bass. Each of the books started with some basic sight reading exercises he wrote, but the bulk of the books was excerpts from a variety of big band charts from the BSU library. Larry would use these books as part of the jazz auditions every semester, but also would assign them to students for general practice.

I was digging around in one of my music file cabinets yesterday looking for something different and I saw these books. They were originally hand written by Larry, but when I was his grad assistant he had me notate some of them with Finale.

https://wilktone.com/wp-content/uploads ... cerpts.pdf

I think the value of practicing things like orchestral or big band excerpts (outside of learning something you're going to perform or audition on) is the same as learning any etude or solo. The more music you learn to play well from sheet music alone, the better a sight reader you'll become.

On top of learning music from reading it, listening closely to music is essential. If you've heard enough music in the style of a particular band or time period then you will understand how to apply that style to other charts when appropriate.

That's fantastic Dave, thanks.

Yes, really good, Dave! Some parts I can definitely recognize, others not so much.

I think it's a nice idea.

I knew a saxophonist who had lessons from a really old-school dance band player. He handed out a book of patterns which ostensibly covered all the common phrases and rhythms you could expect to encounter when playing in a jobbing dance band. At the time it horrified me - nothing could be further from what music is actually for. But now I think it's a great idea. If you properly internalise all that then you never really need to sightread again (on that sort of gig). Which is, anyway, how functional sight reading works.

Separately I've been pondering whether there'd be any interest in an excerpts book from the London Jazz Orchestra. We have a vast library of complex, original music, some of which has interesting/tricky passages on the trombones. But it's niche to say the least and not a lot of use outside practising for practising's sake.