Note to self: To send Malcolm up a creek, ask for music with no jazz influence.

I can hear the jazz influence you're referring to, but I can say without a doubt that this piece is nowhere near as exhuberant as I was originally expecting. In a way, I suppose that's good, because it shows an origniality on your part that allows you to sidestep the expected, and give us something tastefully done, like this.

Hehe...I think it's funny that most people think of "jazz" and automatically think something really up-beat like "In the Mood." Jazz really has two main elements that formed it--African rhythms (lots of syncopation) and late 19th-Century/early 20th-Century chord structures (7ths, 9ths, etc.), and the latter is really what gives this arrangement the "jazz" flavor. (And on a side note, the general orchestration of jazz "big bands" came out of budget, mostly--string players cost a lot more to hire, so jazz composers and band leaders hired select brass, rhythm, and woodwind players to make their music work.)

That's fantastic! Reminds me of my old days playing in a trombone-only octet!