Sam Burtis

Trombonist
Lower Brass Player
Composer
Arranger
Educator

Attended: Ithaca College, 1963-1965, majoring in tuba and composition. Berklee School of Music, 1966-1968, trombone and composition major. Studied with and played professionally w/ Herb Pomeroy, John La Porta, Alan Dawson, Charlie Mariano and Phil Wilson while at Berklee.

Moved in 1969 to New York, after short stints w/ Buddy Rich and Woody Herman, and has since been a busy free-lance musician specializing in recording, jazz, and the musics of Latin America as a trombonist, bass trombonist, tubist, composer , arranger and music director.

Currently: Trombonist and Transcriber/Arranger with the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, directed by Dr. David Baker. Mr. Burtis has been a member of the orchestra since its inception in 1991, co-led at that time by Mr. Baker and Gunther Schuller, playing in styles as widely diverse those of Louis Armstrong, the Benny Moten Band, Duke Ellington, (where he specializes in playing valve trombone in the style of Juan Tizol and plunger work in the style of Tricky Sam Nanton), Dizzy Gillespie, and Gil Evans. He also plays bass trombone and tuba w/the orchestra. The SJMO does a great deal of educational work as well, giving clinics at universities all over the world.

Mr. Burtis also gives many individual clinics and masterclasses in universities and conservatories both nationally and internationally. His recently published trombone method book, The American Trombone, is rapidly becoming a standard reference for trombonists who wish to be able to play in both Western European orchestral styles and the many North and South American styles as well.

Trombonist and composer/arranger w/the Chico O'Farrill Afro-Cuban Jazz Ensemble, a band that has been appearing every Sunday for the last four years at Birdland in New York City, playing the music of the master Afro-Cuban composer Chico O'Farrill and others who write in that idiom, including Mr. Burtis.

He has also recently been writing for the Loren Schoenberg Orchestra and the Vanguard Orchestra, appears regularly w/the Vanguard Orchestra and the Jason Lindner Ensemble, and writes and plays for the Mike Longo Big Band. His latest record is entitled "Let's Try It Again", a collaboration w/the master Afro-Cuban percussionist Cleve Pozar, written and performed primarily by Mr. Burtis and Mr. Pozar for four trombones and bata drum ensemble.

The Big Three Palladium Orchestra, a recently formed latin jazz repertory band which plays the music of Tito Puente, Machito, and Tito Rodriquez, is another of his current projects, in which he is the lead trombonist and a featured soloist as well.

The Marty Sheller Jazz Ensemble led by the legendary New York composer/arranger Marty Sheller and featuring such jazz and latin greats as Bobby Porcelli, Bob Francheschini, and Oscar Hernandez This is a long awaited 8 piece group that highjlights the writing of Marty Sheller, who has written for all of the great latin/jazz grouips for the past 30 years. A CD will be released this spring. Mr. Burtis will also be featured at the upcoming 2003 Eastern Trombone Workshop in Washington DC and the International Trombone Festival in Finland playing the music of the J.J. Johnson/Jai Winding Quintet and presenting clinics in trombone techniques and embouchure approaches.

1993-1995: The original Music Director (providing many of the arrangements and transcriptions, and acting as conductor ) of the Charles Mingus Big Band, a band that has been performing in NYC since 1993, made several tours of Europe, and released a number of critically acclaimed CDs.

1989-1996: Trombonist and Arranger for the Tito Puente Latin Jazz Ensemble and the Tito Puente Orchestra, two bands that recorded at least four times a year and toured the world, including Europe, South America, The United States, and Asia. His arrangements for the Latin Jazz Ensemble included interpretations of two Charles Mingus pieces, Nostalgia In Times Square and Moanin', blending the jazz harmony and swing of Mingus's music with the Latin-American rhythmic influences of Tito Puente and his musicians, plus one of his original compositions, Para El Rey.

A partial list of other artists with whom he has worked since coming to New York would include:

The Lee Konitz Nonet, Jon Faddis, The Thad Jones-Mel Lewis, Dizzy Gillespie Band, John Abercrombie, Eddie Palmieri Machito, Charles Mingus, Carla Bley, Gil Evans, Chuck Israels, Quincy Jones, David Sanborn, Dave Mathews, Randy Brecker, Jimmy Knepper, Michael Brecker, Dave Taylor Deodato, Roswell Rudd, Britt Woodman

He was also a featured soloist and member of the 36 piece orchestra that premiered Charles Mingus's Epitaph at Lincoln Center and later toured Europe, Russia, and the United States, under the direction of Gunther Schuller.

Mr. Burtis has also performed on innumerable commercials, records and in at least forty Broadway and off-Broadway shows during his time in New York, has been associated with both the New School and The Mannes School of Music as a brass teacher, had a number of private students, and, under the Web name of Sabutin, has been contributing monthly columns on advanced techniques of playing the trombone to the Online Trombone Journal(<http://www.trombone.org/>) He also contributes regularly to the trombone-l, a mailing list that includes over a thousand trombonists dedicated to the discussion of technical and musical questions regarding the trombone. . His trombone method book, The American Trombone, can be ordered directly from him at sabutin@mindspring.com or through Hickey's Music Online at http://www.hickeys.com/index.htm.

He is currently organizing a band, The Orchestra of the Americas, to play compositions of his that are influenced by both the North and South American traditions, and blend them into what he hopes will become a new idiom, a new way of looking at the whole American musical experience, and has recently opened The Trombone Store in New York City (http://samburtis.com and/or http://thetrombonestore.com ) that is dedicated to the sale of fine high-end new and classic trombones.

In view of his extraordinarily wide range of experience as both a performer and composer/arranger/music director in so many idioms, Mr. Burtis can teach, both as a clinician and as a faculty member, trombone, lower brass, brass, jazz and Latin ensembles, the history of jazz and Latin music, theory, harmony, composition, studio and professional performance techniques and improvisation, as well as appearing with and writing for student ensembles in concert. For further information please call (718) 796-4413 or email him at <sabutin@mindspring.com>.