The Slide Suite was written to give the trombone sextet or trombone choir a true concert suite that could demonstrate the unique capabilities of the tenor and bass trombones.

It was also written to satisfy the itch to write something that expressed some of the depth and breadth of American music. Rather than writing a suite with movements titled with Italian words for tempos like Allegro and Lento, or names of antiquated dances like Minuet and Gigue, the movements are all examples of American musical forms.

The five movements are (in order) Rag, Barbershop, Spiritual, DooWop, and Fight Song, so the Suite is bookended by instrumental forms while the three middle movements are vocal forms.

MP3 sound sample: Entire Movement (synthesizer/midi).



SLIDE SUITE NO. I: RAG, by Tom Kirkland, for trombone sextet of five tenors and one bass trombone, comes in a pdf file of 589K, with a six-page score, six two-page parts, and a license page, nineteen pages in all. Performance time should be about two minutes.