Writing for big band

I’ve written two new ‘suites’ for big band for the Byres Road Big Band concert in the Blythswood Festival on Sunday 17 May.

I say ‘suites’ – actually each of them is just three pieces, so, as I’ve been joking, two three piece suites, that’s four amchairs and two settees :)

Seriously, though, this music is important to me. The start of my dizzing career in music – culminating in a PhD in composition and my role as Head of PG Music at the Conservatoire – starts with me hearing ‘Take Five’ on the radio sometime in the early 80s and being inspired to teach myself jazz trumpet.

This led me on a journey through a roster of currently-residing-in-the-where-are-they-now-file bands in the Edinburgh area, picking up skills in writing, arranging and music theory as I went.

Through the 90s and 00s I was still gigging as jazz trumpet player, but, creatively, I broadened out into ‘contemporary’ composition: often jazz ‘informed’ perhaps, but not actual jazz writing.

That led on to the PhD which, again, had no echt jazz in it, although the collective away in which I ‘devised’ the music in collaboration with a group of players certainly bears a relationship to jazz practice.

I perhaps shouldn’t say this in public, but unfortunately the PhD kind of killed me, in terms of straight contemporary writing. I’m still proud of the music I wrote during that period, particularly my final show ‘The Other Other Hand’ but, creatively, I found myself at the end of that process kind of fed up with jumping through the hoops of formal ‘composition’.

After the PhD, I escaped for a while into the world of livecoding – certainly a strong improvisatory element there, but, once again not jazz.

Finally, the epiphany. Although my first instrument is trumpet, I’ve also played trombone on and off for many years. After spending the covid years woodshedding on trumpet, it occured to me for some reason to get my bomtrone back from the person I had lent it to and dust it off.

For a lark, I decided one week to go and sit in on trombone for a rehearsal of the Byres Road Big Band.

At the end of that rehearsal I made this kind of tearfully-joyful confession to this room full of musicians – that I really didn’t know at all! – to the effect that it had been one of the greatest musical experiences of my life, and that I finally realised I should have been playing trombone in a big band all along.

So. For the last two years ago I’ve been working with the band, slowly improving my trombone playing to the point where I can almost cope with typical big band repertoire.

Along with that, I’ve been writing for the band, both dusting off and reorganising old pieces and coming up with new ideas.

There is a good deal I could say about that, but this posting is long and rambling enough as it is, so I’ll leave that for next time.

Here’s the gig:

https://www.tickettailor.com/events/jsimonvanderwalt/2125487

Sun 17 May 2026 7:00 PM - 10:00 PM
National Piping Centre, Glasgow
Doors 1900
Band 1930-2200 with interval
£13/£7 concession