How come the saxes always get to play all the fun parts in big bands? Cool, beautiful and hip melody lines, accompanied by an occasional “bap” or “do-bauw” from the brass section. Ok, it is not the whole truth, but there are some fun sax parts that are (reasonably) playable on trombone as well. Do I need to say how good it will sound when played on trombone?

Thad Jones is known for his brilliant music for big band, and Groove Merchant is one of my favorites. Especially the sax chorus is amazing. Full-fat super-hip lines with intense voicings, this is Thad at his best! And even better, it is actually quite suited for trombone. Admitted, it is a bit technically challenging, but the range is spot on – when playing it an octave below the lead soprano. I wrote out the harmony as well, it´s a fun piece to solo on. read more »

10 Jazz Etudes for Trombone

I don´t really like to practise. It´s lonely and can be quite boring from time to time. That is one of the main reasons I wrote this book – to make practising more fun!

The concept of the book is simple: Every etude is composed as an improvised jazz solo, written over the chords from a famous jazz standard. And every etude consists of two parts; easy/medium and advanced, each divided into numbered choruses. Two of the etudes are written as a duet for two trombones.

You can play the etudes alone, with a piano player, a full rhythm section or find the relevant songs on a play-along cd (not included). The idea is to let you expand your jazz vocabulary, and play music that really fits the instrument. read more »