Trombone’s limited audience appeal for solo career

[tbdana]

I've generally felt that the trombone's greatest strength is as an ensemble instrument, in a trombone section. Some of the most memorable moments in music are trombone-section-related. That strength dwarfs Its charms as a solo instrument.[\quote]

Yes!!!! This a thousand times over.

But it is also the instrument. It is nearly impossible for a solo trombone to remain compelling for even a modest concertante work. Trombone + piano is an unfelicitous combination.

Yeah, this too. Unfortunately.

[WilliamLang]

If we don't believe in ourselves then why would anyone else?

[LeTromboniste]

I don't agree with the premise of calculating appeal based on raw numbers of listens on streaming platforms.

That being said, taking the question more broadly I would say many, many different reasons. Most of them we have no control on, and as others pointed out, they're broader cultural reasons, and questions of which genres and styles the trombone is used in, and how culturally relevant those are to the majority of people. I think it's no coincidence that when the trombone was used in genres that were relevant, if not to the general population, at least to the class that had the power and wealth and supported and consumed art the most, there were famous virtuosos of the trombone that were among the best paid musicians. Who literally had emperors composing music for them.


(Rant incoming:)
Now, one thing I might add, though, where we do have control (and I realise this is maybe a dangerous and controversial thing to say here), at least regarding the classical world, is that artistry and musicality are just not really expected or even encouraged of trombone players. Don't get me wrong, I know there are some really, really good musicians there. But there are also very successful players who, whether they are good musicians or not, display very little musicality in their actual playing. It's simply not required of us in an orchestral context (when it's not downright seen as detrimental), with the result, I find, that we collectively hold ourselves to a very low standard with regards to artistry compared to many other instruments.

If we're being honest, save for a few exception, a lot of even the cream of the cream of classical players (who I respect tremendously as players, as they are technically flawless, and better players than I could ever dream to be) are not super interesting musicians to listen to. Interesting for us fellow trombone players who can fully appreciate how amazingly well they play the instrument, sure, but light years away, in terms of broader musical interest, from the great violinists, cellists, singers, pianists, etc. And I think that's at least in part because there are fundamentally anti-musical elements in the very core of our technique and sound concept, which then limit what even occurs to us. It's the Law of the Instrument: if the only tool you have is a hammer, it's easy to start seeing everything as a nails. We focus a lot on fullness and broadness and power, and perfect evenness and playing the longest possible phrasing with the most equally sustained airflow, and absolute consistency of tone and articulations, to the point where a lot of musicality is beaten out of us, without us even realising it, until we're left with a fairly mundane and surface-level musicality. Even our equipment choice pushes us in that direction. My main trombone teacher actually didn't subscribe to a lot of the mainstream trombone dogmas and was himself very musical and encouraged us to be unique (although he did of course also train us to be able to win jobs), but even despite that, it still took me years afterwards to break free of some of these constraints, such is the sheer cultural pressure and normativity of the classical trombone world (and brass in general). I see it now all of the time when teaching or coaching people. I see their minds blown by the suggestions of even simple musical ideas that can make a world of difference, but that systematically had never occurred to them and are totally foreign. Those ideas are well within their technical means, but they typically really struggle at first to even try to implement them, as they find themselves fighting deeply internalized instincts and reflexes, and facing resistance from core elements of their technique that they might not even have realized were core elements. When neural pathways are really well-programmed it's really hard to diverge from them.

To be fair I'm not sure other instruments' scenes deserve much credit, and also I don't think it's really a fault on our part. I think the mainstream classical world in general simply has a very established and quite strict canon of how things are done and what the expectations are, and those are different for each instrument. So it's probably just a question of what each instrument's canon-dictated tunnel vision sees, and that just happens to be more musical in the case of many other instruments, and less musical in ours.

All that to say, though, I don't think it has to be that way. It's a choice we make (whether it's a conscious one or not) to follow that canon. We can just as easily choose to put being an artist at the top of our priority list.

[WilliamLang]

Well said Maximilien!

[mbarbier]

Trombone Shorty is a good musician. So is Rita Payes - one doesn't take from the other.

Perhaps, but my beef is that the students I hear locally have chosen to blast away like Shorty as opposed to playing with finess and style like Rita.

Then again, VHS was chosen over Beta by the unwashed masses. I shouldn't be surprised.

That's just a stylistic choice for Troy (and the pretty standard way to play in Nola), but he's genuinely one of the best musicians anyone is likely to ever meet. We went to high school together and the stuff he could do casually is still hard to wrap my brain around sometimes. Troy would casually fill in on any part of the the rhythm section in big band- just complete stylistic fluency that was almost untethered to instrument. In brass ensemble he'd do stuff when sat next to each other like pretent to play when we sightread then play it perfectly the next time through, correcting the million mistakes I made, because memorizing it by ear and fixing mistakes was genuinely easier for him that reading (which he did well too). He'd do that was stuff like Gabrielli. Just totally incredible.

It's not my favorite style despite growing up in it, but he's an incredible musician who plays that way cause it's how he wants to play. Probably a significant contributor to his success and appeal.

[mbarbier]

Well said Maximilien!

Seconded!

[Trombo]

It was an interesting discussion. They cursed the imperfection of the trombone, the damned Spotify, the "unwashed masses", "businessman" Glenn Miller, etc.
But the main thing went unnoticed. All the heroes of this topic were not only trombonists. First of all, they were COMPOSERS and SINGERS. They created THEIR MUSIC and sang it. All of them - Willie Colon, Rita Payes and Trombone Shorty. Only Glenn Miller did not sing himself, but used professional singers.
The trombone was only an auxiliary tool for all of them. They could have used any other musical instrument with exactly the same results.

[harrisonreed]

To my knowledge there still has been only one full time trombone soloist in history. That is, someone who did not have a band, did not have an orchestra job, did not have a teaching job in addition to performing. The funny thing is that most trombone players do not even like how that one person played, don't like their sound, etc. But when I've asked clarinetists, violinists, singers, and basically anyone else who does not play brass they all say "that is the best trombone player I've ever heard" or "they phrase the music like a violinist or singer".

So I think there is a disconnect between what trombone players and brass musicians are taught or think is "good", vs what is entertaining and speaks to people. It is telling that one of the few people in this discussion who said that we should promote ourselves, and who I must add is an amazing player and musician, chooses to promote the trombone as a solo instrument with a niche of music that is probably the least accessible genre of music for the average person. That's not a dig, I just know what Joe Snuffy listens to.

[robcat2075]

What would solo stardom (AKA millions of streams) look like for a trombonist today?

The big pop stars (Taylor Swift et al.)today are all vocalists, performing material where the lyrics are the prime attraction, far above that of the music. The instrumentalists who accompany them are not a significant factor in their image.

[Savio]

What would solo stardom (AKA millions of streams) look like for a trombonist today?

The big pop stars (Taylor Swift et al.)today are all vocalists, performing material where the lyrics are the prime attraction, far above that of the music. The instrumentalists who accompany them are not a significant factor in their image.

This is an interesting topic. Taylor Swift. Sabrina Carpenter. The music business is more and more desperate. Sabrina play on sex. But it's not new, popular music has always done that. So maybe we older guys should get the shorts on and play more sexy? OK, it would be the definitive death of the trombone....

Serious, we can't competing with Taylor Swift. She has a big office behind her. Probably bigger than the White House since everyone there is soon fired.

The best we can do is to play as much as possible. Support schoolbands, go to local school concerts, go to symphony orchestras nearby. Go to jazz club's.

And play the trombone. It's still the coolest instrument. No one can slide through life like us

Leif

[StephenK]

Another aspect to this is how comfortable to player is playing solo compared with playing in a band or orchestra section. Here in the UK I heard Peter Moore saying he is way more comfortable as a soloist out at the front rather than he was leading the section in the LSO. I wouldn't be surprised if Christian Lindberg felt similarly.

[Trombo]

We must not forget that the trombone is a very comic musical instrument. This was noticed by Charlie Chaplin.
In the Soviet Union there was a solo trombonist Georgy Shakhnin (1921-2002), who performed in the circus as a musical clown. He was very popular and was often shown on television to an audience of millions:



Here is a more extended version:

[robcat2075]

We must not forget that the trombone is a very comic musical instrument...

Yup, if the trombone didn't exist the clowns and the cartoons would have had to invent it.


It's like trying to make a solo career out of a rubber chicken and a whoopee cushion.

.

[Trombo]

We must not forget that the trombone is a very comic musical instrument...

Yup, if the trombone didn't exist the clowns and the cartoons would have had to invent it.


It's like trying to make a solo career out of a rubber chicken and a whoopee cushion.

.

To make such a career, you first need to learn to play the trombone.
Christian Lindberg himself did not consider making people laugh something shameful:

[Joebone]

Well said Maximilien!

Seconded!

Thirded! Classic orchestral norms and individuality seem inherently at odds with each other. I certainly feel this as compared with the jazz/latin/Brazilian approaches to which I've been attracted. That said, I have to get out more and explore what trombonists with classical training or in academic settings are up to in the way of extended techniques and broader avenues for expression. Like this...which blows me away...

[mbarbier]

Seconded!

Thirded! Classic orchestral norms and individuality seem inherently at odds with each other. I certainly feel this as compared with the jazz/latin/Brazilian approaches to which I've been attracted. That said, I have to get out more and explore what trombonists with classical training or in academic settings are up to in the way of extended techniques and broader avenues for expression. Like this...which blows me away...

agreed. though it's got a lot less general popular appeal, in the avant garde/drone/noise worlds the trombone is on much much more even footing with other instruments and voices. I've found with my duo that festivals/venues/audiences tend to be much more interested in that type of music being produced by trombones than more tradtionally popular forms. and the trombone is much better suited towards extended techniques/modifications/electronic means than most other traditional instruments. obviously a much smaller general appeal, but i'm glad we have a place we're still wanted

[harrisonreed]

I feel like this is somehow related:



It's interesting that there was a version of the Greek lyre that was played like a guitar (the kithara), and that the chords to this song are remarkable similar to modern pop tunes. I'm sure the guy in the video took a look of artistic liberty, especially when he goes into the English translation, but it is fun to think that pop tunes have basically been with us for all our recorded history. The trombone was out of date before it was even invented...

[VJOFan]

Trombone has just as much facility as other instruments, and facility isn't the only thing that matters. Yo-Yo Ma is probably just as famous to general audiences for playing the Swan everywhere he goes as he is for the Bach Cello Suites, and neither of those are anywhere near the hardest or most impressively technical things written for cello.

There's a whole classical music industry built up around Piano, Violin, Singing, and Cello being at the top of a hierarchy. It's self-referential, and has more to do with societal conditioning than the potential of the instruments themselves.

This thought was just blown by in the thread. If you go see Yo-yo Ma you know he’ll play at least something pretty.

If you go to the NYP premier of the Corea Concerto, you can expect that it will take effort on your part to enjoy the piece.

The domination of the classical solo scene by strings and piano is probably as much about sticking close to a proven repertoire as anything else. Trombonists will sometimes throw shade on a piece like the David. It may not be a monumental piece of repertoire, but it has tunes. I would rather hear Joe Alessi play the crap out of a “simple” piece like that or the Grodhal or Larsson than hear him and the orchestra at their limits playing something “great” or “important”.

I remember my wife driving 8 hours with a girlfriend to catch Anne-Sophie Muter play the Brahms Concerto. Any top music school grad can probably play that piece, but a great musician playing well within their capabilities can bring out the music in a way others can’t.

The best of us seem to be focussed on showing their virtuosity and continuously put out or commission works that are hard in anyway one wants to take that word. I wish they’d have the confidence in their musicality to play things undergrads could play, but elevate them to the point audiences would be moved.

That’s the other point that comes up often in the thread. The few trombonists who gain any sort of traction tend to be those who play things that already have some beauty or appeal in a beautiful or appealing way.

[bwilliams]

Trombone has just as much facility as other instruments, and facility isn't the only thing that matters. Yo-Yo Ma is probably just as famous to general audiences for playing the Swan everywhere he goes as he is for the Bach Cello Suites, and neither of those are anywhere near the hardest or most impressively technical things written for cello.

There's a whole classical music industry built up around Piano, Violin, Singing, and Cello being at the top of a hierarchy. It's self-referential, and has more to do with societal conditioning than the potential of the instruments themselves.

This thought was just blown by in the thread. If you go see Yo-yo Ma you know he’ll play at least something pretty.

If you go to the NYP premier of the Corea Concerto, you can expect that it will take effort on your part to enjoy the piece.

The domination of the classical solo scene by strings and piano is probably as much about sticking close to a proven repertoire as anything else. Trombonists will sometimes throw shade on a piece like the David. It may not be a monumental piece of repertoire, but it has tunes. I would rather hear Joe Alessi play the crap out of a “simple” piece like that or the Grodhal or Larsson than hear him and the orchestra at their limits playing something “great” or “important”.

I remember my wife driving 8 hours with a girlfriend to catch Anne-Sophie Muter play the Brahms Concerto. Any top music school grad can probably play that piece, but a great musician playing well within their capabilities can bring out the music in a way others can’t.

The best of us seem to be focussed on showing their virtuosity and continuously put out or commission works that are hard in anyway one wants to take that word. I wish they’d have the confidence in their musicality to play things undergrads could play, but elevate them to the point audiences would be moved.

That’s the other point that comes up often in the thread. The few trombonists who gain any sort of traction tend to be those who play things that already have some beauty or appeal in a beautiful or appealing way.

Like this:

[harrisonreed]

Trombonists will sometimes throw shade on a piece like the David. It may not be a monumental piece of repertoire, but it has tunes. I would rather hear Joe Alessi play the crap out of a “simple” piece like that or the Grodhal or Larsson than hear him and the orchestra at their limits playing something “great” or “important”.

The David is objectively bad -- the third movement is hardly different from the first movement. It has tunes, sure, two of them to be precise. The other two pieces you mention are far superior.

I saw Joe play the Chick Corea piece with the Tokyo philharmonic, and was very underwhelmed. I'm not sure the piece is actually all that great. I also saw him play the Pulitzer prize winning Rouse concerto with a much less prestigious orchestra in Ft. Collins CO and was completely blown away by the music. It should be a much more difficult piece to listen to but it wasn't. It is one of the "great pieces", and I think the orchestra put in way more work to get it under their fingers than perhaps Tokyo did with the Corea piece, and really owned it.

Good music is good music. My wife doesn't like modern classical music and she was blown away by that performance. The challenge is getting people into the hall in the first place, to hear that kind of music. Also while avoiding the plethora of modern crap posing as great music.

[LeTromboniste]

The David is objectively bad -- the third movement is hardly different from the first movement. It has tunes, sure, two of them to be precise. The other two pieces you mention are far superior.

"Objectively" bad? That sounds to me like a very subjective, not objective statement.

It's totally fine that you don't like the piece. I thoroughly dislike some repertoire that everybody loves, even some masterpieces, that just don't speak to me. We all like different stuff, for different reasons. That's ok. But I just want to comment on the specific reason you invoke for saying it's "objectively bad", because, I'm sorry I have to say, it's utter nonsense. You say it's bad because the third movement repeats a lot of the first. The problem with that is, there is no third movement (or first or second, for that matter). It's a concertino in only one movement. It helps in appreciating the piece when we accept it for what it is, and don't try to make it into something it isn't, i.e. a big full-scale concerto in three movements, which sadly we trombonists have a tendency to do (I think because we're desperate for a serious piece by a serious composer of the mainstream canon). What it is, really, is a fairly small-scale, one-movement piece in sonata form. Intro, exposition (first subject, modulating bridge, second subject), development, recap (first subject, non-modulating bridge, second subject), coda. Absolute textbook sonata form, although I would say it has an above-average development (the classic, conventional development that just plays around with ideas already exposed gets unexpectedly interrupted by a big operatic recitativo – perfectly understanding and capturing the trombone's personality as an instrument – and a funeral march? Come on, give the guy some credit!). Does the material from the beginning repeat? Of course it does, it's a sonata form! That's one of the primary features of that form. Now, the sonata form is the most common form in classical and romantic music, and the first movement of virtually every sonata or symphony for about 150 years used it, including every symphonist from Haydn to Mahler. Would you comment that all of these movements are objectively bad, because they have an exposition and recap sharing the same material? That's a reaaaaallllly big chunk of the repertoire we're going to throw out if that's our criterion for designating something as "objectively bad"...

Personally, I think it's a great piece. It's very idiomatic for the instrument, and it's written in an archetypical German romantic language, the language that is probably considered "home" by the most classical music listeners. I've studied some of David's other works, and that has only led me to appreciate his concertino for trombone even more as I started noticing his personal idioms and style where I previously heard good but generically-romantically music. But I won't say it's objectively good, I don't think there's such a thing.

[harrisonreed]

I mean, sure, it's called a concertino, but that's probably just because F David couldn't think up anything for the third section/movement. It has three distinct sections separated by cadenzas, not one long form movement. It's actually 4-5 minutes longer than than the Rimsky Korsakov piece that is called "concerto". The David is a 16 minute long work, which is about average for a concerto, tbh, especially for earlier works.

The thread is about how to appeal to a broader audience, and I think the F. David, while useful academically or for very young performers in teen concerto competitions (oh wait, we can't use it for that because it's not a real concerto!), is something that takes away from the trombone as a serious solo instrument. We have so many great pieces written by great composers but we keep having to hear the F David piece. We don't have to be desperate for serious Romantic pieces if we just look up from our syllabus, because we have them already. Grondahl, Rimsky Korsakov, Bourgeois, Larsson, Nesterov... There are more. But the David is given way too much credit compared to those.

[robcat2075]

As I think about it, the trombone's fate is only slightly worse than the other wind instruments'.

Many appealing Classical-Romantic Era flute and clarinet concertos exist but they are rarely heard on symphony orchestra programs unless a superstar like James Galway has been engaged.

By contrast, the public eagerness for piano and violin concertos is great enough that they will appear on about 2/3 or more of symphony orchestra programs with no superstars needed. The eagerness is such that even one-hit wonders like Bruch and Grieg are standard repertoire.

Horn concertos are not vanishingly rare but that's because MOZART wrote some. Too bad there wasn't a rich trombone player in Vienna to commission Mozart.

Of course, a number of Baroque wind instrument concertos have become popular favorites but those are chamber orchestra pieces, not often found on symphony orchestra programs today.

...

I think a primary problem with the David concertino is that it is a trombone solo.

The great piano and violin and cello concertos have memorable passages for the orchestra alone or that are an essential part of the soloist + orchestra texture, moments that you live to hear.

Think of a Rachmaninoff concerto.

The David concertino is more like an aria in an opera... an orchestral intro, some discreet boops and swoops while the fat lady sings, a vamp when she doesn't, and a big finish. Not much of it memorable on its own. (Note that vocal soloists have also fallen off orchestral programs as that style of piece has declined in favor.)

It is not BAD, it is not unworthy of performing, but it doesn't rise to greatness... nor have i heard any other trombone concerto that does.

...

[LeTromboniste]

I mean, sure, it's called a concertino, but that's probably just because F David couldn't think up anything for the third section/movement. It has three distinct sections separated by cadenzas, not one long form movement. It's actually 4-5 minutes longer than than the Rimsky Korsakov piece that is called "concerto". The David is a 16 minute long work, which is about average for a concerto, tbh, especially for earlier works.

No, in the original material, not only the rehearsal marks go through from beginning to end, but the Marche funèbre even starts in the middle of a system in most of the parts. That's not how separate movements are typically printed. The funeral march goes straight into the recap, no cadenza there, and at the end of what people call the first movement, I would disagree that that's a cadenza. For one, David doesn't write "cadenza", he writes "quasi recitativo", which is consistent with the facts that it is fully-measured (that would be very unusual for a cadenza), and that the orchestra accompanies it throughout, with exactly the style of interventions you would expect from a recit. The trombone part is even printed in cues in the orchestra parts. Regardless, though, even if it were a cadenza, that means nothing with regards to structure. You can have a cadenza in the middle of a piece, or at the end, or even right at the start it doesn't have to indicate the end of a movement. In terms of the runtime, 15-16 minutes is about half the duration of a typical concerto of this time. Ferdinand David's own concertos, or Mendelssohn's, are all around 25-30 minutes for example, usually with the first movement alone taking up almost half the time, around 12-13 minutes, with a shorter 2nd and 3rd movement. The 15-16 minutes of the David Concertino is absolutely consistent with a concert piece, and not with a full-scale concerto, including his own concerti (he wrote at least five, that we know of). Yes the funeral march has the feel of a distinct section (except the piece goes straight into and out of it), but that's hardly incompatible with the piece being in one movement: individual movements have distinct sections within them, sometimes with a tempo change, all the time. And again, if you look at the overall structure, it is an absolute textbook example of a sonata form. It has every single element of it, and nothing at all that contradicts it.

(edit: fixed typos)

[harrisonreed]

We might have been able to get Mozart concertos if Geshaldt (I forget how to spell it) had been born a generation later. He was the one that Mozart's father wrote trombone solos for.

[BGuttman]

We trombonists generally steal from other instruments' repertoire. How many times I've seen trombonists play the Mozart Bassoon concerto K.191, and an occasional horn concerto (Mozart #3 works really well). We play the Saint-Saens Morceau de Concert also.

Why couldn't we play "The Swan" as well? I'd bet Joe Alessi or Toby Oft would sound fantastic on it.

[WilliamLang]

it works well

[harrisonreed]

The 15-16 minutes of the David Concertino is absolutely consistent with a concert piece, and not with a full-scale concerto, including his own concerti (he wrote at least five, that we know of). Yes the funeral march had the feel of a distinct section (except the piece goes straight into and out of it), but that's hardly incompatible with the piece being in one movement: jdividual movements have distinct sections within them, sometimes with a tempo change, all the time. And again, if you look at the overall structure, it is an absolute textbook example of a sonata form. It has every single element of it, and nothing at all that contradicts it.

You win you win. I will listen to it ten times and say an Our Father for my penance.

[harrisonreed]

There you go, Robert!

[CalgaryTbone]

Milhaud's Concertino also repeats the first movement material in the third movement (or section, if you prefer). A common compositional approach.

Amount and quality of repertoire is the biggest issue, on the classical side for someone becoming a full-time soloist. We're not alone, however. On most other woodwind and brass instruments, there are few if any full-time soloists as well. There have been a few trumpet, horn and flute players through the years, but they have to mostly repeat the same two or three concertos, and occasionally do a premiere of a new work which may or may not resonate with the audience. Even violinists who premier new material often have name recognition with the audience because of their Beethoven/Brahms/Mozart appearances, so an audience is ready to give the new work a chance based on the artist's reputation.

The sheer amount of great repertoire for violin and piano (and to a lesser degree cello) as well as the momentum of years of their works being programmed is hard to overcome. I've been lucky enough to play several of our best solo works over the years here, and I think that there is a bit more openness for an audience in a smaller city than a New York or Chicago to "try out" something different - less expectations. There just isn't a lot of space on most orchestras' seasons to program something that might not be a major draw for the audience. Also, if they do program for a wind, brass or percussion soloist, they are more likely to do so for one of their own players for the orchestra, so that also cuts into opportunities for a full-time soloist.

We aren't alone -in my career I haven't heard many concertos for viola or double bass, and oboe, clarinet, bassoon concertos are infrequent. Even the horn has 4 Mozart and 2 Strauss concertos, but not a lot else that's really memorable to non-horn players. Make friends with composers and encourage them to write more works - something may break through and resonate with an audience. Otherwise, enjoy making music in the back row and try to make those passages in Tchaikovsky, Mahler and Brahms be memorable for the audience and satisfying for you and for your colleagues.

Jim Scott

[LeTromboniste]

The 15-16 minutes of the David Concertino is absolutely consistent with a concert piece, and not with a full-scale concerto, including his own concerti (he wrote at least five, that we know of). Yes the funeral march had the feel of a distinct section (except the piece goes straight into and out of it), but that's hardly incompatible with the piece being in one movement: jdividual movements have distinct sections within them, sometimes with a tempo change, all the time. And again, if you look at the overall structure, it is an absolute textbook example of a sonata form. It has every single element of it, and nothing at all that contradicts it.

You win you win. I will listen to it ten times and say an Our Father for my penance.

Sorry for my nit-picky mental rigidity

You're definitely not alone in thinking it's a bad piece. It's certainly not a great one. I just think it gets more flak than it deserves. And I suspect if we had more than just that single piece as a performance-worthy romantic concerto, it would probably be liked more than it is now with the pressure of being our only "big" romantic piece with orchestra that ever gets played.

We might have been able to get Mozart concertos if Geshaldt (I forget how to spell it) had been born a generation later. He was the one that Mozart's father wrote trombone solos for.

Or if he had moved to Vienna like Leutgeb (the horn player). Although of course there were very capable trombonists in Vienna who Mozart could have befriended and written a concerto for.

Mozart did write trombone solos for Gschlatt, just not fully solo movements in instrumental music like his dad or Michael Haydn had. At least we can console ourselves with the monumental amount of music with trombone solos from 18th century Vienna and Bohemia. Hundreds and hundreds of them (see the new catalog by Howard Weiner, Charlotte Leonard and Linda Pearse – there are over 5000 pieces with trombones from this tradition, many, many of them including trombone solos)! Just need to get them performed... And of course that's not like having a big name concerto!

[harrisonreed]

You're definitely not alone in thinking it's a bad piece.

I know, that's because it is terrible!

[VJOFan]

Maybe we just need to go back to the ‘70’s.

I wore out the grooves of this album in the recording library of my university during my undergrad in the 80’s. He just plays with such abandon, yet finesse.

Whatever the reason for it, I often find my ears get really tired listening to most contemporary recordings/players. Everything is just so centered today??

For me, Miles Anderson is very appealing, and likely would be to most people open to listening to music of this ilk.

[Trombo]

Yes, there are many great trombonists in the world, but they are known only to trombonists themselves.
Personally, I like F. David's Concertino. It shows the severe and heroic character of the tenor trombone well. These qualities of the trombone allowed it to survive in symphony and opera orchestras. Otherwise, it would have suffered the fate of the ophicleide, serpent and other extinct medieval musical instruments. That is why this piece is played at all orchestra competitions around the world.
In jazz, the severity and heroism of the trombone was replaced by two opposite directions - lyrical (Tommy Dorsey) and virtuoso (all other modern jazz trombonists).
And it seems that Tommy Dorsey is still much more popular with the general public than all the virtuoso solo trombonists put together. His sweet sounds are so pleasing to the ear. In my opinion, he is the heir to the Baroque tradition of playing the alto trombone, which is why he mainly used the high register. But we have digressed greatly from the topic. What prevents the trombone from becoming popular with the general public? The imperfection of the trombone or the imperfection of music for the trombone?
Why haven't we had our own Miles Davis, who would not chase speed but would put forward new musical ideas? And would Miles Davis have become so popular if he had played the trombone?
More questions, not answers.

[harrisonreed]

I personally think Nils Landgren or Fred Wesley were going in the direction of what the most people would find appealing.

[Trombo]

Yeah, I like both. I love funk. I wonder how many fans they have on goddamn Spotify?

[robcat2075]

I once read that Antonín Dvořák didn't think it was possible to construct a good cello concerto until he heard Victor Herbert's cello concerto and thought, "Oh... so THAT's how you do it."

We have two problems as trombones: we never had our Victor Herbert and... the Dvořáks are all gone.

[tbdana]

A trombone solo career is a bad prospect, but not as bad as a solo euphonium career or a solo tuba career.

After all these posts, I'm not sure people have landed on why a trombone solo career is so elusive.

[Kbiggs]

A trombone solo career is a bad prospect, but not as bad as a solo euphonium career or a solo tuba career.

After all these posts, I'm not sure people have landed on why a trombone solo career is so elusive.

I think Maximillien said it above (although more prosaically): We allow ourselves to be constrained by what has gone before when we should instead build upon it. We should stand upon the shoulders of giants, not be cowed by them.

[Trombo]

A trombone solo career is a bad prospect, but not as bad as a solo euphonium career or a solo tuba career.

After all these posts, I'm not sure people have landed on why a trombone solo career is so elusive.

Yes, a solo trombonist has no chance of getting tens of millions of views, no matter how well he plays. But if he COMPOSES good music, SINGS it well and also plays the trombone, then there is a chance. And besides, good looks are desirable.

[harrisonreed]

A trombone solo career is a bad prospect, but not as bad as a solo euphonium career or a solo tuba career.

After all these posts, I'm not sure people have landed on why a trombone solo career is so elusive.

I'm not sure you're right here. I think the answer was hit on -- the guitar, guitar-like instruments, and singing predate it by thousands of years, and it never was as good as those instruments. That's a huge reason why it doesn't have "mass appeal".

[robcat2075]

the market for instrumental music, as a pop performance type, is at an historic low overall.

According to the internet, the last instrumental to hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 was "Harlem Shake" in 2013, the first since... 1985.

Also from the Internet: "As of April 7, 2025, there are no instrumental songs currently on the Billboard Hot 100 chart"

No, I've never heard of this:

[tbdana]

Well, let's not confuse things. We don't need to have any trombone #1 pop hits for trombonists to have successful solo careers. We don't even need to be on the pop music radar. Classical, jazz, and Latin music can support rich solo careers.

Players like John Allred, Bob McChesney, Marshall Gilkes, Steve Davis, John Fedchock, Steve Turre, Elliot Mason, Trombone Shorty, Rita Payes, Wycliffe Gordon, Ian Bousfeld, and Christian Lindberg, among others, have at least part of the formula down. I think we should be looking at folks like that for at least part of the answer.

[robcat2075]

Well, let's not confuse things. We don't need to have any trombone #1 pop hits for trombonists to have successful solo careers. We don't even need to be on the pop music radar. Classical, jazz, and Latin music can support rich solo careers.

The success of trombone performers compared to pop stars is part of the premise of the discussion at the outset.

Go read the OP.

[harrisonreed]

Well, let's not confuse things. We don't need to have any trombone #1 pop hits for trombonists to have successful solo careers. We don't even need to be on the pop music radar. Classical, jazz, and Latin music can support rich solo careers.

Players like John Allred, Bob McChesney, Marshall Gilkes, Steve Davis, John Fedchock, Steve Turre, Elliot Mason, Trombone Shorty, Rita Payes, Wycliffe Gordon, Ian Bousfeld, and Christian Lindberg, among others, have at least part of the formula down. I think we should be looking at folks like that for at least part of the answer.

You seen Lindberg perform live? I've seen him a few times. The best was in 2004 in DC, when he played Kalevi Aho's Symphony 9 (a 30 minute trombone concerto with TWO orchestras, the symphony and an internal baroque chamber orchestra). He ran out onto the stage to an audience of maybe 2000 people, and immediately everyone is cheering like he is some kind of rock star. He's bowing, shaking hands, and then nods at the conductor, and when his horn goes up the applause goes silent instantaneously. Proceed with 30 minute long work from memory, switching between tenor and alto sackbut!!? (Just go listen to it, it's incredible) Then when he was done, he does nine curtain calls. I'm getting sentimental over you is played. Finally he plays flight of the bumblebee and stops midway through, and says "I am sorry but I can't play any more! There are more pieces tonight!" And the audience kept clapping after he left until he finally came back and begged them to stop.

He has the secret to performing down. But he is still only appealing to the classical music lovers, and the ones that aren't trombone players go home, say "wow that was unbelievable!", and forget about what they just saw, because they can't sing the tune and literally no one else is playing the piece to reinforce it as something they want to hear again(on the radio, at other symphonies, on different albums, etc).

With pop music, and maybe even jazz (but not in my experience), the artists are intrinsically tied to their music that they wrote, that you can sing the tune of, and that can be reinforced on radio, streaming, and whatever else in 3 minutes 30 seconds, over and over again.

Maybe that's the issue. Even Lindberg, who has the excitement and artistry down, isn't tied to his repertoire in the minds of the audience like a pop star is. Sure, he had 100+ works commissioned for him. Sure his "piece" is Sandström's motorbike concerto. But again, you can't sing that tune (like you can sing Beethoven 7), and only one person in the planet could do that piece real justice so it is never reinforced, and even if it was a smash hit the audience would be like "ah yes, Lindberg, he's the guy that goes vroom vroom, when do we get to hear Lang Lang play Rach 2?".

[slidesix]

To me my first trombone soloist to whom I was exposed was recordings of Christian Lindberg.

Why is the trombone limited?

I am not a musicologist nor an academic in music nor a trombone professional. So take all of this with a huge grain of salt. I have not read all the posts yet, I would yield to someone like LeTromboniste on this one.

I think for solo repertriore it is violin and piano and sung lyrics ... then everyone else. We could also ask: where is viola? or where it french horn? or where is the bass clarinet? Or where is the timpani? The reality is almost the same. All of these instruments are worthy. It is just that is seems violin and piano get the most play, the most audience appreciation, the most composer attention, etc. Many composers, like Mozart, etc. were violin or piano players before they started. I think some of that continues today. Why? I don't know. Many these instruments have color and range (not as most octaves--though piano with 88 key is very formidable!), and variation that makes them popular with audiences and composers a like. Violin, piano, and voice seem to have it whatever it is!

Is that all of it? I don't know.

The others aren't wrong with rock or rhythm and blues (R&B).

[robcat2075]

You seen Lindberg perform live? I've seen him a few times. The best was in 2004 in DC... TWO orchestras... ran out onto the stage... everyone is cheering... 30 minute long work from memory... flight of the bumblebee..

... the ones that aren't trombone players go home, say "wow that was unbelievable!"

Yes, i think you have found the problem

On the Venn diagram of audience perceptions of entertainments, he may be closer to a Cirque du Soleil act in Las Vegas than a James Galway at Carnegie Hall.

Lindberg is indeed amazing and incredible but i doubt many audience members go home saying, "I wish I played the trombone", whereas i imagine many people go home from a James Galway concert wishing they played the flute.

Too bad he's not talk show material. That was good for Galway and Itzhak Perlman.

[robcat2075]

If the David concerto is a viable trombone concerto, what is not viable about the Blazhevich No.2?

It has at least as much virtuosity, it has better tunes and more of them, musically interesting treatments throughout and a BIG Hollywood finish.

Aside from the conspicuous lack of a true orchestra setting... why is it in the third tier?

If the argument is "high schoolers play that"... they play the David concerto too.

[robcat2075]

Blazhevich No 2 finale

I presume there are cannons and church bells here

[harrisonreed]

If the David concerto is a viable trombone concerto, what is not viable about the Blazhevich No.2?

Oooo careful now -- is not a concerto.

The Blazhevich ending is sans trombone? In many ways that is superior to the David.