Us, composed by Thad Jones in 1970 and originally recorded that same year, is one of the pieces which defined the new sound of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. While being one of the most successful, early melding of big band instrumentation with rock rhythms and rhythm section instruments, it also includes an a cappella chorus for the ?band? (for this version, read: ?trombones?) and intricate saxophone lines which are challenging but very rewardingly playable.

David Fletcher has done a magnificent job of translating the richness of Thad?s voicings and the exuberance and spirit of this piece to the Trombone quintet plus rhythm section instrumentation of the University of Illinois Jazz Trombone Ensemble, who have performed it at both American Trombone Workshops and International Trombone Festivals.

David Fletcher, a member of the award winning University of Illinois Jazz Trombone Ensemble under the direction of Jim Pugh arranged this great chart for Trombone Quintet and rhythm section. It is about 4 minutes in length and includes improvised jazz solos for Trombone 2 and Electric Guitar.

Dimensión is a tango that wascomposed based on two simple piano pieces destined to young pianists: the firsttheme is "Langostango" andthe second one "Continuando".When joining to build up "Dimensión",additional elements came into the game, such as an important secondary melodyand a few transitions.

Dimensión is therefore a clearexample of a successful composition: a couple of good ideas and a lot of workto achieve that nobody notices how much work lies behind it.

About the title, it obeys to my (slightly excessive) concerntowards finding names that can be understood in any language of the places Iusually am related to (i.e. in Spanish, English and German). In the case of "dimensión"it is a transparent word, understandingas such the words that are practically identical in any language while keepingtheir meaning (there exist words that are quite similar in different languages,but mean different things, in Linguistics these are called false friends.) Among my titles one finds several of such transparent words.

In September 2002 I began to conductthe Orquesta No Típica at theUniversity of Bremen, Germany, a chamber group of variable instrumentationdevoted to tango music. Dimensión wasthe first piece that I composed especially for this group, in January /February 2003. The original version of Dimensiónis therefore for Sextet: flute, clarinet, violin, guitar, bass,piano.

Sincethat first version (performed several times in Germany and Argentina) I wrote along dozen of arrangements for different instrumental groups.



Dimensión for trombone octet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8Uq4_PSlPI