The three works on this album are billed as "genre-shattering trombone concerti for the 21st century," but they're actually slightly oversold as such. Only one, the Concerto for trombone and orchestra of
Jeff Tyzik (2003), is actually a product of this century, and the program as a whole is actually on the conservative side, no more "for the twenty-first century" than any other group of pieces that assert their continuing relevance. They are genre-bending in the sense of incorporating popular influences into traditional concert-music frameworks with unusual elegance, but hardly "genre-shattering." Hyperbole aside, the program is worthwhile. Most noteworthy is the reconstruction by trombonist James Pugh of a vanished work by one of the twentieth century's shadowy but omnipresent figures, Nathaniel Shilkret. Known to anyone who has ever collected 78 rpm records, Shilkret was a prolific composer of arrangements for ensembles associated with the Victor label. He also wrote independent works like the Concerto for trombone and orchestra included here, premiered in 1945 by no less than
Tommy Dorsey and
Leopold Stokowski but subsequently lost; Pugh searched out partial scores and has assembled the work in various stages. The result is a delightful score that comes at the crossover problem from several different angles and is more comparable in attitude to
Gershwin than anyone else, especially in its lyrical slow movement. The first movement is nicely situated at the point where late Romanticism met the language of film music, and the finale is an upbeat jazz essay. Pugh's own concerto is likewise inventive and diverse. Commissioned by a Pennsylvania orchestra to write a jazz-influenced concerto, he argued specifically in favor of "a work which drew it's [sic] 'popular' influence from more straight eighth-note music -- a time feel which orchestras do well naturally." That's an interesting if debatable point -- most orchestral musicians have played swing arrangements at one time or another, but the simpler yet edgier feel of the "straight eighth-note music" that links early jazz to rock & roll is more difficult for many of them. Pugh achieves a lot with his eighth notes, however, drawing on New Orleans jazz,
Copland. The final concerto by
Jeff Tyzik is more virtuosic but less musically distinctive, but sharp performances from the
Colorado Symphony round out an album that merits praise for its persistent effort at musical resuscitation.