Instrumentation: 5 saxophones, 4 trumpets (cup mutes), 3 tenor/1 bass trombones (bucket mutes), 4 piece rhythm section with guitar.

Solos: bass (opt changes in guitar), trombone 1, and tenor saxophone 1. Lead trumpet plays up to concert D6, which might limit this chart to college and professional ensembles (or extremely advanced high school ensembles).

Run Time: Approx. 7’ (if open solos are only 2X)

A flowing, straight 8th note piece, the rhythm section states the opening melody before moving into a bass solo, followed by a slightly ominous send off for the trombone solo. The piece then moves into a contrapuntal ensemble chorus before sending off the tenor saxophone solo, which finishes by riding over the out head.

The opening melody was originally written in 2011 for Jim Pugh’s Jazz Composition course at the University of Illinois, where it started as a 12-tone melody composition exercise. (Don’t worry, only the first melodic statement was composed using a tone row, everything else is fairly tonal/modal in this piece). I added an arrangement for nonet to my library the following year, but it took until September 2024 to start the big band version at a request from Drew Hansen at Midwest Young Artists in Highwood, Illinois. The name initially referred to the iciness of the harmonic major sounds used throughout, not the dread of living through the climate crisis, but program it as you like.

Limited edits are available as part of the purchase price, though I retain full discretion over whether the edits are significant enough to constitute a rewrite or are too much of change from the original.