Old Friends Bring a Lost Work to Life

New York, NY (June 25, 2026)—Nearly 90 years ago, legendary bandleader Tommy Dorsey abandoned an ambitious new symphonic work, deeming it too difficult after just one attempt. Now, trombone virtuoso Jim Pugh, with Grammy Award-winning engineer and producer (and former AES president) Jim Anderson and producer Ulrike Schwarz, has finally brought the music to life for the first time.

Arriving August 14, New American Symphonies is the first-ever recording of Roy Harris’s long-lost trombone symphony, originally written for Dorsey in 1938. Captured in Digital eXtreme Definition (DXD) and immersive audio at Power Station at BerkleeNYC, the album pairs the rediscovered Harris composition with “Night Suite,” a contemporary multi-movement work written specifically for Pugh by composer Scott Ninmer.

The album reunites Pugh with Anderson, whom he first met in a Pennsylvania school band more than 60 years ago. Pugh went on to become one of the most sought-after trombonists in contemporary music, his career spanning more than 4,000 recording sessions with artists from Steely Dan and Paul Simon to Barbra Streisand and Frank Sinatra. Anderson is one of the world’s leading audio engineers and producers, earning more than 30 Grammy nominations alongside his wife and longtime production partner, Ulrike Schwarz.

The project began with a years-long research effort that led Pugh to the Library of Congress, where he uncovered Harris’s original manuscripts. 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.

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“It’s really a magnificent piece of music,” Pugh says. “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.”

“If we can make the technology disappear, if our presence can be totally transparent, then we’ve done our job,” Anderson says. “Sure, we’re always trying to push the envelope, but ultimately our goal is to make timeless recordings with nothing standing between the listener and the musical experience.”

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That philosophy is realized throughout the album’s immersive production: “When you listen to this record, you’ll feel like you’re standing in the middle of the band, but also like they’re playing directly to you,” adds Schwarz. “It’s a completely immersive experience.”