Jazz Ensemble Ballads

This chart is a tour de force perfect for any contest program. Featuring slow swing, medium swing, and a combination of both, where the horns maintain the swing feel while the rhythm section goes to a

This wonderful alto saxophone solo feature is powerful and moving with notes of nostalgia and pain. This ballad is a great selection for any concert program.

This classic tune comes alive in this rock arrangement. With a great moment for open solos and its focus on lower voices, this chart will be a hit!

This rock ballad is a great option to show lyrical contrast without slowing things down too much. Featuring the alto saxophone 1 part, this lush and moving chart is a good fit for ensembles with a strong

One of the masterpieces of jazz, this beautifully crafted feature for alto sax uses a variety of styles and settings. Mostly scored as a ballad, there is a jazz waltz section in the middle followed by a

Here is a mysterious, richly scored ballad composed in the Cuban bolero style and featuring a solo flugelhorn. This piece is great to slow things down and show the more expressive side of your ensemble at

This Benny Golson ballad has become a standard trumpet or flugelhorn solo feature over the years. This chart is a gorgeous straight-eighth ballad at around 70 bpm that features a flugel soloist while the

Travel back in time to the big band era with this nostalgic dance ballad ensemble feature. This idiomatic chart with a lyrical melody will immerse players in the tightly voiced harmonies and textures made

Copper Bell Memories is a moving solo feature for tenor saxophone. The contemporary harmonies provide a contrast to the rest of any program. The orchestration builds to a soaring, breathtaking

Always Simpatico will take audiences through a unique and satisfying musical journey. The humble melody introduced at the beginning travels from section to section, building in intensity each time

This lush chart on Alone Together is a beautiful ensemble jazz ballad with a haunting melody and lots of interesting counterpoint and harmonies. Written with comfortable ranges and played

Theme for Bill is a beautiful, straight-eighth ensemble ballad that will provide the perfect change-of-pace on any program! The pensive melody is backed throughout by lush orchestration, and a

Alan Baylock sets this wonderful tune in a sultry 12/8 groove played at about 72 bpm, making it feel lazy and relaxed. There are no solos, just sweet ensemble writing all the way. The lead trumpet

Here is a beautiful trombone solo feature where you can combine forces with a string orchestra in this lush work for jazz ensemble, or jazz ensemble alone. The string orchestra can easily be replaced or

Sammy Nestico pays tribute to his long-time friend and trombone icon, Bill Watrous, with this touching trombone solo feature of Mancini's Too Little Time from the soundtrack of the 1954 film "The

Alan Baylock has created a sonic landscape for the full ensemble and a tenor saxophone soloist from one of Charles Mingus' most lovely and soulful ballads. The tenor gets the spotlight with an elongated

Written for advancing groups to feature any solo instrument, this beautiful ballad with trumpets on flugelhorns changes to a double-time Latin feel for the middle improvisation section. Other than the

As recorded by the Oliver Nelson Orchestra on their album Berlin Dialogue for Orchestra, A Relative Calm is a beautiful ballad that features trumpet throughout. There is very little improvisation,

This beautifully composed rock ballad features your lead alto saxophone player. With rich harmonies providing a lush cushion behind the soloist, it is a substantial offering that is also

Jazz groups with a strong lead alto sax player will enjoy this ballad in film noir style. Its smoky harmonies and wistful melody are broken up with a double-time swing section before a powerful reprise at

Lush Life  is one of the finest ballads ever by a brilliant composer and gifted arranger. As played at around 88 bpm and moving into a double-time bossa section leading into the