For those unaware, nearly ninety years after legendary bandleader Tommy Dorsey abandoned an ambitious new symphonic work deemed too difficult for its time, trombone virtuoso Jim Pugh has finally brought the music to life.

Arriving August 14th, 2026, New American Symphonies EP [via World Premiere Recordings] unites Pugh with Grammy Award-winning engineer and producer Jim Anderson and acclaimed producer Ulrike Schwarz for the first-ever recording of Roy Harris’s long-lost trombone symphony, originally written for Dorsey in 1938.

Captured in stunning Digital eXtreme Definition (DXD) and immersive audio at Power Station at Berklee NYC, the album pairs the rediscovered Harris composition with Night Suite, a contemporary multi-movement work written specifically for Pugh by composer Scott Ninmer.

Bringing the piece to life required far more than a recording session. The project began with a years-long research effort that eventually led Pugh to the Library of Congress, where he uncovered Harris’s original manuscripts spread across several boxes of archival materials. There, he learned that Dorsey’s orchestra had rehearsed part of the work only once before abandoning it and that the music was never publicly performed.

“It’s really a magnificent piece of music,” says Pugh. “If you close your eyes and listen to the first movement, you can hear where jazz would eventually arrive some 35 or 40 years later, and if you pay attention to the back end, you can hear the roots of minimalism. It’s this remarkable little time capsule that slipped through the cracks of history.”

1. American Symphony 1938 - 1st Movement - Vigorously [06:55]
2. American Symphony 1938 - 2nd Movement [10:21]
3. Night Suite - i. Eventide [09:03]
4. Night Suite - ii. Gliding Through Darkness [07:10]
5. Night Suite - iii. Too Late [08:33]

Recorded live with an all-star ensemble featuring musicians drawn from the worlds of jazz, classical music and Broadway, they open on the sprightly, veritably Cartoonish in its makeup American Symphony 1938 - 1st Movement - Vigorously, before we are gifted a regal fanfare of resonance within American Symphony 1938 - 2nd Movement.

That is itself then backed seamlessly by the engagingly transportive engaging Night Suite - i. Eventide which is then followed by the lushly resplendent fare of Night Suite - ii. Gliding Through Darkness, the new set coming to an all-too-soon close on the emotively impassioned Night Suite - iii. Too Late.

Official Spotify Purchase Link