Jeff Tyzik has gifted the musical world a wonderful orchestral arrangement of Ellington and Strayhorn's "Harlem Nutcracker". I had the privilege of performing it a few weeks ago with Southeastern PA SO (Trombone 1) and sweated the details, including using the plunger on HIGH notes (small f to c' )in several movements, and a killer solo in "Dance of the Floreadores". I know it's not a "new" arrangement but it was new to me and I LOVED IT!!!

Our jazz band did that whole suite last year. We are lucky to have a trumpet player with buckets of money who went out and bought the whole thing. I think it was around $400. We practiced our butts off for it and then the concert got snowed out. So we did our Christmas concert the first week of January and still got a pretty good crowd. That was one of the most fun things I have ever played. Lots of high notes on the lead book.