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My teacher wants me to play one next year for our big band, and I was wondering if there was a site that had music that could be bought and clips to be heard of any sort of jazz Tuba solos to be played with a big band.

"Ain't Gonna Ask No More", written by Toshiko Akiyoshi for her big band. It's a contrabass trombone feature, but works great on tuba as well. There's an open section in the middle, so prepare yourself to play several choruses of Bb blues.

I'll look into it. I don't really want to play a solo originally written for another instrument. I'd rather play something that was written for Tuba or if I'm desperate to find one, a Trombone.

TubaBluba wrote:There is a solo in the Hal Lenord master solo book called Introduction and Blues, I can't remember who it is by. It is a good solo and was written for tuba. It is easy to find, but it is with a piano, not a big band.

I've heard that and I liked it, but it's not what I'm looking for. I'll try the first recommendation.

You can also find something that is a vocal solo or flugelhorn solo.

Go for something linear, and melodic.

Going that route you'll avoid the usual pitfalls where the tuba is featured on some dorky tune that turns it into a novelty. Find something that treats it like a real instrument of the band where you can play music without having to resort to schtick.

Are you familiar with Bob Brookmeyer's Celebration Suite? I played the 4th movement ("Two And") with a band a couple of years ago. It requires a full big band, plus solo bari sax and trombone (I played it on F tuba). It's a challenge for both the soloists and the band, but it worked out really well.

At Otter Distributors search under composer for "Crotty" and you'll get Mike Crotty's stuff for sale. Mike Crotty wrote for the Airmen Of Note in D.C. and is a professor of Jazz Studies at Arizona State now. "Bass Is Loaded" was set up as a bass feature, and has the alternate Solo Tuba part included. It's a medium-slow chart on a dirty Eb blues. "Words Unspoken" is written for tuba and big band, Mike composed it for Sam Pilafian. The solo changes are difficult, and the chart is very contemporary and requires lots of counting and concentration from the entire band. Extremely cool piece of music, but very hard.

Then search under composer for "Haines" and you'll get Ryan Haines' stuff. He's a badass bone player here in D.C. with the Air Force band, and a stellar writer to boot. "Pan Fried Doodles" is on his just-released CD "New Horizons." It's set up as a bone feature, of course, but it works just fine as a tuba feature with the solo part down the octave. It's an up-tempo chart built on a souped-up set of Bb rhythm changes, nothing too off-the-wall. It also has the soloist playing along with the sax section soli, and that worked GREAT on tuba. There aren't any recordings of the Crotty charts, but Ryan's CD's are also available on the Otter Distributors website. Highly recommended. Ryan is a total stud. More on him at Dead Axe Music.

Also get in touch with Leigh Pilzer at her site, she's a sax player here in D.C with great writing chops of her own. She did a feature on "Pennies From Heaven" that was originally set up for me with the U. of Maryland Jazz Ensemble, and she did a bari sax feature for herself on "Cry Me A River" that's really nice and works great for tuba as is. Kind of high, take some stuff down the octave as needed. Talk with her directly about her charts.

PM me if you want some more ideas, there's a few other folks I know, but I don't have contact info handy... In any case, look around at Otter Music Sales, they have stuff ready to go. They've been good to me, they even rushed me a copy of "Pan Fried Doodles" while they were busy packing the vans to go to IAJE the next day.

Thank you so much for this info.