TromboneChat

On another topic, it was noted that big band players in the US are kind of sick and tired from playing "in the Mood" constantly.

Where are you from, what musical styles do you play, and what pieces make you want to scratch your own eyes out?

Finlandia and Danzon No. 2.

Burgerbob wrote: Tue May 19, 2026 11:55 am Danzon No. 2.

Oooh I feel you!

The community orchestra I play in does Sleigh Ride and A Christmas Festival every year. Our conductor says that the one time he didn't, the audience complained. The Hallelujah Chorus from The Messiah is another one that we do almost every year.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered (in wedding bands). Great song but I've played it enough for 10 lifetimes. I also absolutely loathe Sweet Caroline.

Regarding In the Mood, I have only played it once in my career (which involves a lot of big band work), and I don't know anybody who's had to play it often. Swing era tunes don't get played much anymore, and I think that trope is outdated. But it sure used to be true...we played it in my high school jazz band, and whenever we ran it in rehearsal the director would walk out of the room!

SwissTbone wrote: Tue May 19, 2026 11:59 am

Burgerbob wrote: Tue May 19, 2026 11:55 am Danzon No. 2.

Oooh I feel you!

To be clear, I've played them many times with pickup orchestras and thought it was level of the group holding back those pieces. I played both with a very good orchestra this year and... nope, still just the same. Never again, please.

The big band I played with here did" In the Mood" every dance gig ( one of our tenor sax players called it "In the Nude"). We ended every gig with "Swing, Swing, Swing" (ironically at too fast a tempo for it to really swing!).

Orchestral repertoire that I can do without - Toreadors from Carmen; Blue Danube (which I don't even have to play, but I'm sitting there; Sleighride; 1812 Overture; and anything by ABBA.

Jim Scott

Finetales wrote: Tue May 19, 2026 1:08 pmSwing era tunes don't get played much anymore, and I think that trope is outdated.

Swing era tunes are still a staple for the kinds of bands I play in. People will pay to hear us hacks play swing-era stuff that they can dance to. They won't pay to hear us play jazz. Honestly, some of the would probably pay to NOT hear us play jazz.

I quit the Navy music program because of Eye Of The Tiger. 40 years ago.

Yes, it gets old, but when I see the smiles in the audience, it's hard to remove ITM from a WW2-era lineup. We're also seeing a growing number of young swing dancers who not only love the swing-era charts but also know the words. Their enthusiasm and the appreciation of the older set make it worthwhile to keep ITM alive.

James Taylor still plays Fire and Rain. Again and again and again.
There was a country musician who commented that he didn't realize when he penned a song that he would be singing it for the rest of his career, was a little bummed out about it--until he goes to the mailbox and opens the royalty check envelope.

The band I play in has ITM, plays it only rarely. We also have the Jeff Tyzik arrangement for the Severinsen Tonight Show Band. It's a little different. Other times, in response to requests, we'll play "a chart with some of the same notes" and call it that. How long can you ignore your audience and expect them to show up?

I played in a big band that had a gig every other month at a local bar. We didn't do Miller or Dorsey, we played a lot of Basie and Nestico plus others. We had rotation of pieces we would play all the time while ignoring a bunch of others just as good or better in the book. It got monotonous. I quit that band,. I heard the old leader retired and the new leader is dusting off the book and playing stuff the old leader would never have programmed. About time!

When I was in college our jazz band NEVER played any of the classic Swing era stuff. It was all modern beedely-jop-jop-da-doop stuff and latin-influenced samba-somethings.

Our director didn't consider Swing to even BE jazz. "It's just white harmonies with black rhythms." So all those famous Swing tunes... I've never seen them.

EXCEPT... one time we got engaged to play for a dinner-dance of US military somebodies. The night before the event, our director handed out "In the Mood" and "Moonlight Serenade". We ran through them once.

Of all the stuff we played at that function, those two Glenn Miller tunes got the hugest reaction and enthusiasm from the crowd. By far.

The next week those two "charts" were turned back in and we never played anything like them again.

I've played two world premieres of major works for orchestra by a Pulitzer-Prize-winning composer but I've never played "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" or "Stardust" or "String of Pearls" or any of several dozen other genuine classics that a trombone player ought to have contact with.

So, I am unmoved by the plight of having to play "In the Mood".

My trombone quartet is conscious of the whole "getting in a rut" thing. Every other year we go through the entire book (we've been together for about 12 years), which is almost up to 200 charts, so it takes several rehearsals to get through everything. We put together an active list of tunes that we work on for special events, maybe 6 tunes that are challenging enough that you can't just read them. Things like Birdland, Cohan Medley, Gershwin Portrait, in-house arrangements of Fly Me To The Moon, Sing Sing Sing, Girl With Flaxen Hair, etc. But we still like to keep some of the classics ready like Ain't Misbehavin, Achieved is the Glorious Work, Drei Equali, Do you know what it means to miss new orleans... You have to work on new charts, but you can't forget the classics that got you where you are.

Burgerbob wrote: Tue May 19, 2026 1:28 pm

SwissTbone wrote: Tue May 19, 2026 11:59 am

Oooh I feel you!

To be clear, I've played them many times with pickup orchestras and thought it was level of the group holding back those pieces. I played both with a very good orchestra this year and... nope, still just the same. Never again, please.

I loved it the first time I played it, it was on bass trombone.
I liked it less much the second time, playing 1st trombone.
I hope there will not be a third time.

My blacklist:
- Conquest of Paradise
- Satchmo (a Louis Armstrong-themed medley): played it on 1st trumpet, it was fun the first time (if you don't listen to the bad swing of a symphony orchestra), but we kept it in the setlist for 2 YEARS, now I never want to play it again

When overseas, "In the Mood" is expected from a military big band. It didn't get old in Korea or Japan for me, because the audiences over there associated the piece with the USA. There are different arrangements and different ways to play that piece, too.

Not playing it over there is kind of like going to Disneyland and only seeing Star Wars characters and not seeing Mickey Mouse.

It's fun when played correctly. It's a drag when a band.....drags it, and/or it's played it as if they hate it.

I've played it well over 1000 times with the Miller band, and the response makes it fun. People like it.

If you don't like it, hold your nose (well, maybe not literally) and remember who you're playing for. (Hint: It's not you.)

robcat2075 wrote: Tue May 19, 2026 6:27 pm ... one time we got engaged to play for a dinner-dance of US military somebodies. The night before the event, our director handed out "In the Mood" and "Moonlight Serenade". We ran through them once.

Of all the stuff we played at that function, those two Glenn Miller tunes got the hugest reaction and enthusiasm from the crowd. By far.

The next week those two "charts" were turned back in and we never played anything like them again.

I've played two world premieres of major works for orchestra by a Pulitzer-Prize-winning composer but I've never played "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" or "Stardust" or "String of Pearls" or any of several dozen other genuine classics that a trombone player ought to have contact with.

So, I am unmoved by the plight of having to play "In the Mood".

I am not an In The Mood fan, but I have to say String of Pearls is a far superior tune, musically speaking. There's actually a melody, for starters. Ask anyone who says they're a fan of In The Mood to sing the melody.

The standard stocks for both are competently written arrangements. No voicing or range issues. Many people, including many musicians, don't realize that both of these arrangements are close but definitely NOT what the Miller band actually played. This is true of a lot of these tunes. There isn't a lot of people who have decided to go and transcribe (by ear or by finding original parts) what these bands actually did.

I play in a band where the bandleader has a great knowledge of lots of music from the swing era, and he's frequently putting in set lists other tunes from the Miller band which are less well-known, or lesser-known versions of well-known tunes. For a stretch last year, he decided to put back-to-back in either order both Miller's version and Benny Goodman's version of String Of Pearls, then after ask the audience to vote on which they liked better. Usually, the clapping volume was pretty close but in general the Miller version had the edge.

I was hoping people from other countries would chime in on what constitute the equivalent to ITM in their countries. For instance, the Venezuelan bassist in my big band in Pittsburgh said that for him, "Besse Me Mucho" was that song.

I lived in Germany for 5 years, and always considered "Radetzky March" to be along those lines, but I am sure a native could rattle off the equivalents...

The GMO book is great, I just wish more of it got played when the band toured, they seem locked into a kind of "Set List Death Spiral" with their current Battle of the Bands tour with the Dorsey band! I would really, really love hearing them with a full orchestra playing the Army Air Force stuff!

robcat2075 wrote: Tue May 19, 2026 6:27 pm When I was in college our jazz band NEVER played any of the classic Swing era stuff. It was all modern beedely-jop-jop-da-doop stuff and latin-influenced samba-somethings.

Our director didn't consider Swing to even BE jazz. "It's just white harmonies with black rhythms." So all those famous Swing tunes... I've never seen them.

I can see this, I think jazz studies programs had a real chip on their shoulders 40 years ago or so (when I was studying music), and had a need to be taken more seriously by the "longhairs" in the music schools, so if the music smacked of representing popular tastes, you weren't going to be playing it!

Given that the generation that grew up during thw Swing Era was still alive at that time, it kind of made sense, but now that that music is as much an "art music" as any other genre, stuff like Claude Thornhill (especially Gil Evans charts!), Boyd Raeburn, Duke Ellington, Basie, and if you can find them, recordings of Sam Donahue's Navy Band have a lot to offer.

GMO in its various iterations had all sorts of musically superior charts to ITM: Tail-End Charlie, Caribbean Clipper, Speak Low, and approachable yet musically excellent and hormonically complex AAF arrangements like "Poinciana" or ""Holiday for Strings."

Lots of great music out there...

JTeagarden wrote: Wed May 20, 2026 6:09 am I was hoping people from other countries would chime in on what constitute the equivalent to ITM in their countries. For instance, the Venezuelan bassist in my big band in Pittsburgh said that for him, "Besse Me Mucho" was that song.

Not sure we have something like that. But I know I can't stand this one anymore:

https://youtu.be/mCvYXto0i8A?si=LaUke92RXUcz1n2X

- "Fanfare for the Common Man", closely followed by "Billy the Kid". I think I've used up my lifetime reserve of Copland.
- that Last Night of the Proms, flag wavey stuff, especially as one of my orchestras does a summer concert in the Brexit/Reform heartland (for our UK listeners). I don't like playing for people who might just throw me out of my country.
- Scheherazade. It's not that bad a piece but years ago I went to a silent movie show of Ben Hur with a Carl Davis score of 3 hours of cut up Rimsky-Korsakov, and it still triggers flashbacks.

SwissTbone wrote: Wed May 20, 2026 7:02 am Not sure we have something like that. But I know I can't stand this one anymore:

https://youtu.be/mCvYXto0i8A?si=LaUke92RXUcz1n2X

Wow, that's about the dullest march I've ever heard.

AndrewMeronek wrote: Wed May 20, 2026 5:40 am I am not an In The Mood fan, but I have to say String of Pearls is a far superior tune, musically speaking. There's actually a melody, for starters. Ask anyone who says they're a fan of In The Mood to sing the melody.

The endless arpeggios, the honking horns... "In the Mood" was doing Philip Glass before doing Philip Glass was cool.



.

Glenn loved him some 6ths! Lots of them in his music, which probably was "way out there" in 1942.

DaveAshley wrote: Wed May 20, 2026 4:58 am It's fun when played correctly. It's a drag when a band.....drags it, and/or it's played it as if they hate it.

I've played it well over 1000 times with the Miller band, and the response makes it fun. People like it.

If you don't like it, hold your nose (well, maybe not literally) and remember who you're playing for. (Hint: It's not you.)

Alan Raph had a great anecdote along these lines: As a young player, he told an older musician at a recording session that he wasn't sure he was buying the music they were recording, and the older musician said "your job isn't to buy the music, it's to sell it!"

JohnL wrote: Tue May 19, 2026 12:19 pm The community orchestra I play in does Sleigh Ride and A Christmas Festival every year. Our conductor says that the one time he didn't, the audience complained. The Hallelujah Chorus from The Messiah is another one that we do almost every year.

I would sometimes pass on the community band holiday concert if those two old warhorses were on the program.

JTeagarden wrote: Wed May 20, 2026 6:09 am I was hoping people from other countries would chime in on what constitute the equivalent to ITM in their countries. For instance, the Venezuelan bassist in my big band in Pittsburgh said that for him, "Besse Me Mucho" was that song.

I've heard on occasion that the bluegrass equivalent might be Orange Blossom Special.

SwissTbone wrote: Wed May 20, 2026 7:02 amNot sure we have something like that. But I know I can't stand this one anymore:

https://youtu.be/mCvYXto0i8A?si=LaUke92RXUcz1n2X

It doesn't sound bad to me, though it's rather repetitive. That said, I can see how one might tire of it pretty quickly.

JTeagarden wrote: Wed May 20, 2026 7:51 am

SwissTbone wrote: Wed May 20, 2026 7:02 am Not sure we have something like that. But I know I can't stand this one anymore:

https://youtu.be/mCvYXto0i8A?si=LaUke92RXUcz1n2X

Wow, that's about the dullest march I've ever heard.

Most marches we play here around are somewhat like this one. Same format, scale up, scale down... this one has a nice trio section at least wich is actually the anthem of our region.

Granted I play in a polka band so I knew what I was signing up for, but I'm completely over Rosamunda - "Roll out the Barrel". It's in every gig. It's also at every Wisconsin and Packers football games as well as the Brewers.

dwcarder wrote: Wed May 20, 2026 1:22 pm Granted I play in a polka band so I knew what I was signing up for, but I'm completely over Rosamunda - "Roll out the Barrel". It's in every gig. It's also at every Wisconsin and Packers football games as well as the Brewers.

I play in a German band and second your motion. My band has some fun oddball charts - Hey Jude Polka for one.

At this point, I could do without Hey Jude in any format. Same with Bohemian Rhapsody.

Finetales wrote: Wed May 20, 2026 4:22 pm At this point, I could do without Hey Jude in any format. Same with Bohemian Rhapsody.

Not even these?





I find that thinking of a Muppets (or maybe Weird Al) version of a tired tune can make it better.

and I still can't play Puttin' On The Ritz without thinking of Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle.

A community band I'm in does American patriotic stuff every fall, around Veteran's Day. There's a medley of military marches that we pull out for the show, which is wearing thin on me. What's worse is that another group I'm in, a British brass band, acquired a similar piece that we've done for Memorial Day shows in the past. Thankfully we're skipping that one this time around.

I cannot say I’ve grown tired of any tune per se, but I find some tunes are more rewarding to play - for one or the other reason. Sometimes a boring piece gets significant audience reactions, and sometimes an easy tune needs to be perfectly executed to give something back to the performer.

Ever since I was ten, eleven, and in junior big bands, I have played all those classic swing charts; Pennsylvania 6-5000, Little Brown Jug, String of Pearls, American Patrol, Moonlight Serenade and so on and on. Now that I’m in my fifties, I regard playing them as producing a staple dish at the highest quality possible and even if it is for the tenthousandth time, that quality needs to be executed and never to be taken for granted.

The repertoire that seems to more and more be falling out of favour, at least in Sweden, is the more exacting Basie repertoire, like Kid From Red Bank, Whirly Bird, Fantail and the such - songs that take a firm discipline and precision to play. Not many bands play those anymore, and not many of those who do, do them well.

There are many songs I don’t like, but this far I’ve never grown tired of actually playing any of them - other than physically. Sledgehammer is a very physical horn song.

DaveAshley wrote: Wed May 20, 2026 4:58 am It's fun when played correctly. It's a drag when a band.....drags it, and/or it's played it as if they hate it.

I've played it well over 1000 times with the Miller band, and the response makes it fun. People like it.

If you don't like it, hold your nose (well, maybe not literally) and remember who you're playing for. (Hint: It's not you.)

This ^^^^^^

Way back in the 1980s, I played in a big band in the north of England. We were sponsored by the local council to play every 2 weeks in the local Arts Centre and every other gig, they would fund a guest soloist (Ah! The good old days) We never played any Miller music and regularly had 200/300 in the audience.
BUT, once a year, we would do a Miller themed night and the Arts Centre wasn't big enough so we had to hire a local theatre and all 1500 seats were filled and they danced in the aisles.
The cheques were well received and sufficient to encourage us to do it again, but only once a year!

Cheers

Stewbones43

I guess my kryptonite would be Count Basie's / Neil Hefti's "'Lil Darlin'"...

To me the music represents your final journey after you swallow a whole bottle of sleeping pills. There was a period where I had to play this piece every set. I started losing my mind:





The director and a few of the "jazz cats" really tried to show us how wrong most of the band was for not wanting to play this chart... And they did so by taking an even slower tempo than is played in this video with the mismatched cover art. The amazing thing about this piece is that if you choose to click randomly around the video seek bar, 9 times out of 10 the same exact chord will be playing, no matter where you choose to click.

"No it's the vibe!" "No, it's really about the precision needed to get the whole band tight on this" "...making something out of nothing..." etc, etc.

I'm sorry but it's more interesting to make something out of nothing like this: (I would rather be doing this):

harrisonreed wrote: Thu May 21, 2026 4:07 am I guess my kryptonite would be Count Basie's / Neil Hefti's "'Lil Darlin'"...

To me the music represents your final journey after you swallow a whole bottle of sleeping pills. There was a period where I had to play this piece every set. I started losing my mind:

Very true! I had a big band in Chicago directed by a Basie alum, and the lead trumpet player played this chart so softly, to play under him on bass bone made me wonder at times if I was playing at all, thankless tune, musically and otherwise.

Once it's the job almost anything is fine as long as the guys around me aren't so jaded they start doing stuff like making up harmony lines or changing octaves. It's in rehearsal where almost anything can become mentally burdensome.

JohnL wrote: Wed May 20, 2026 4:43 pm I find that thinking of a Muppets (or maybe Weird Al) version of a tired tune can make it better.

and I still can't play Puttin' On The Ritz without thinking of Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle.

Being from Hamburg, Germany, and mostly playing jazz and musical theaters, I always got angry playing 'Let It Go' in Frozen. I absolutely dislike this song and although I just played about 60 Frozen shows, I've been happy that there was the intermission after it. In general most of the Frozen Trombone Part in our version over here was terrible and I really did not enjoy that show, neither part nor the music. The good thing about it was it being a short one.

But that's probably the only time I've had such an experience with music. Sure there are tunes that I like better than others and I'm not a huge fan of every tune, but I always find something interesting in a particular work once I take a deep dive into it. And if something is played well, you can find something in almost every work of music.

stewbones43 wrote: Thu May 21, 2026 3:11 am Way back in the 1980s, I played in a big band in the north of England. We were sponsored by the local council to play every 2 weeks in the local Arts Centre and every other gig, they would fund a guest soloist (Ah! The good old days) We never played any Miller music and regularly had 200/300 in the audience.
BUT, once a year, we would do a Miller themed night and the Arts Centre wasn't big enough so we had to hire a local theatre and all 1500 seats were filled and they danced in the aisles.
The cheques were well received and sufficient to encourage us to do it again, but only once a year!

Cheers

Stewbones43

Up to a certain year, I assume anything Miller would get a big turnout in the UK of people remembering his AAF band, which of course was stationed in England and played all over the UK, I have photos my father took as a serviceman of that band, I'll admit no other band comes as close to filling me with a sense of loss like that AAF band.

One band I play in has the Tommy Newsom arrangement of In The Mood which he did for The Tonight Show Band. It's a musical breath of fresh air compared to the Miller version and the audience (who knows that tune if they know nothing else about big band music) always seems pleasantly surprised by it as well.

Regardless of the arrangement or how many times you've played it, for better or worse, the broad appeal as a crowd-pleaser can't be denied.

Another take on this is about the approach a player takes to playing stuff.

That first riff up to Ab demands concentration (for me anyway). It is not automatic to hit it well with style.

Within the tune there is a lot of section work that demands precision of cut offs and attention to balancing behind soloists. Getting the dynamic terrace levels in the out choruses correct and effective requires not falling asleep too. (Not to mention how bad bands get ragged on the entrances after the held quiet notes.)

Finally, that long last low note: players around me often poop out on it or have to take breaths in the middle.

One of my English teaching colleagues had a saying that boring people are easily bored. That's a little harsh for this thread. Still, our perceptions are something we can control as well as how we conceive a situation.

Artie Shaw was offered In the Mood first, and turned it down, as he thought it had no content to it. Not sure if he kicked himself for it, but given his temperament and frequent disappearances from the music scene, probably not.

So you think you have problems?

This guy did eight-a-week of "Phantom of the Opera" for 23 years... and then they fired him.

NYT: After 9,382 Performances, Actor to Leave ‘Phantom’


I imagine many NYC pit musicians have done lengthy runs, also

"In the Mood" made a pretty regular appearance on the set list of a community big band I played with for several years. (I realize reading some of the replies here that we were fortunate to have a director who valued mixing the warhorses like ITM with some more modern charts.) I 100% agree with Wayne that it does take some concentration to play, at least for me as a somewhat decent amateur (I hope!).

But, I'm not always the best at concentrating, and my mind would always wander a little, so this thread is a great opportunity to ask a question that routinely popped up in my brain, usually during the dueling saxophones bit - the plight of the poor fella playing 4th in the Miller orchestra.

As I understand it, and based on what I've seen in photographs and film, all four guys in the section used straight tenors. So I've always felt a little bad for the guy playing 4th having to do a number of quick B2 to Bb2 hits, and if I recall correctly, some eight note runs that also involve a quick transition from Bb2 to B2 in the course of the run. Am I right about this? I mean, of course, I'm sure the Miller band's 4th trombonists handled it with style and grace. Still, my sympathies always went to my historical forebearer.

This is assuming the chart I played was similar or identical to the original, which I think is accurate. Key of Ab.