Gordon Cherry has been running Cherry Classics for over 20 years. He is a leading professional Trombonist in North America, having performed as Principal Trombonist of the Vancouver Symphony, and the CBC Radio Orchestra. As well, Gordon has taught hundreds of Brass students for over 30 years at the University of British Columbia and many international leading music festivals.Details
Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra by Nathaniel Shilkret, written in 1942, was premiered in 1945 by Tommy Dorsey and conducted by Leopold Stokowski with the New York City Symphony with an enthusiastic audience of quite noisy bobby-soxers (Tommy Dorsey WAS a Super Star!)
The concerto vanished and was not seen again for almost 60 years when it was unearthed (long story) by the late Bryan Free of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. The score was "reconstructed" by using a set of parts and reintroduced to the world by Jim Pugh, soloist, conductor Skitch Henderson and the New York Pops Orchestra in January of 2003.
Jim Pugh, with the help of Anthony Patterson, a gifted pianist, reconstructed Shilkret's original 3-system piano score over many years and worked with Shilkret's grandson Niel Shell and Gordon Cherry of Cherry Classics to bring this Piano Reduction version to life.
The work is in the traditional three movement concerto form....moderately fast - slow - fast.
Movement I is "Romantic", lush, flowing, technical, containing a fugue and a cadenza...imagine Rachmaninoff writing a solo for trombone.
Movement 2 originally entitled "Spiritual Paraphrase" is ballad-like and features echos of Dorsey's famous theme, which adds to the magic of the movement.
Movement 3 is both the finale and the dance movement of the Concerto. The rhythms and style come full-bore from the popular dance band music of the 1940s and all those bobbie-soxers at Tommy’s performance went crazy once they heard the bass line start. It is a raucous, unapologetic "Boogie-Woogie".
The solo part of this version of the Concerto also includes movement 1 of the Wind Ensemble version, which is substantially different from the orchestra version.
The music is suitable for virtuoso level performers and is about 25 minutes in length.
Below is a sample of the 3rd movement of the Concerto taken from the brilliant Pugh and Tyzik recording of 2007.
Purchase a CD recording by Jim Pugh performing with orchestra
YouTube 3rd movement with Jim Pugh, Trombone solo and Jeff Tyzik, conductor