Since its creation over 40 years ago, Texas Tech’s Trombone Choir has been a key piece of the university’s music department, striving to push the envelope on what a single-instrument choir is capable of performing.
The group regularly practices a wide array of musical works, including both jazz and classical composition, to put on during select performances throughout the year.
James Decker, director of the group, said practicing and blending these genres is similar to learning a new vernacular.
“It’s really like learning a language,” Decker said. “You learn through study of recordings and imitation, but you also learn the technique of that instrument in terms of form and the ways to most accurately develop.”
While the process of teaching jazz and classical music is similar, Decker said the two art forms possess their own unique aspects that continue to keep them apart.
“Certain things that are done in the classical realm wouldn’t be appropriate for jazz, and vice versa. Classics go for more richness and resonance of sound, and maybe you could say clarity or nobility,” he said. “Jazz is more freely diverse and freely expressive.”
Members of the Texas Tech Trombone Choir play trombones during a practice for the Tech trombone choir in the choir hall at the Tech School of Music Nov. 12, 2025.
Robert Looper
Despite the differences between the two genres, Decker said he believes classical and jazz musicians both have much to learn from one another to create new music styles and techniques.
“Anyone who learns jazz really does need to have a solid foundation in terms of their technique,” Decker said. “ … On the flipside of things, I think classical musicians can learn a lot through the creativity of the jazz process and the art of improvisation — whether that be in the jazz realm or other realms — and that can enhance one’s playing and performance ability as well.”
Joshua Weaver, a sixth-year music education and jazz performance major and member of the Tech Trombone Choir, believes major differences lie in the styles and adjustments performers might make when playing either genre.
“Some people’s natural sound on an instrument lends itself better to one or the other. The way I tend to build my sound and the way I tend to think about things leans more on the jazz side,” Weaver said. “I just think a lot of it is that students find success in one or the other and enjoy playing one or the other more.”
Xavier Moncada, a second-year doctoral student studying trombone performance from Artesia, New Mexico, believes jazz is more nuanced than classical performance, largely due to it not having as long a history as its counterpart.
“If you hear something classical on TV as a classical performer, you probably already know how to play it,” Moncada said. “With jazz, even though it hasn’t been around as long, it still has very challenging elements, and a lot of it is the style.”
Piles of sheet music rest on the lid of a grand piano during a practice for the Texas Tech trombone choir in the choir hall at the Tech School of Music Nov. 12, 2025.
Robert Looper
As the group moves further into the year, it approaches its annual Carol of Lights performance, a musical holiday celebration that incorporates performances from the combined vocal choirs and the Tech Trombone Choir as over 30,000 lights across campus illuminate Tech and kick off the holiday season.
Decker said the Christmas-themed event gives the group a chance to blend the classical and jazz music elements they’ve been developing throughout the year into a traditional holiday performance.
“The Carol of Lights gives us a great opportunity to try new ideas as we learn the content and add on additional aspects to make our performance even stronger,” he said.
Since the group’s most recent performance on Nov. 9, the Tech Trombone Choir has been working to prepare for Carol of Lights by creating more in-depth, intentional holiday pieces.
“Because these practices are all directed by me personally, and because we don’t have the same amount of music to work on as we do when preparing for a regular concert, we’re able to be a little more detailed and really dig into the pieces we’re preparing,” Decker said.
This year, he said he is aiming to showcase a portion of the choir’s ability by performing a preview concert at the South Plains Mall on Dec. 7, shortly before the Carol of Lights event later that same day.