The Star City Bone Quartet is alternately known as Slides Rule. Our sister organization is Star City Brass Quintet, and of course we had to find a way to share a website. The Bone Quartet was founded in 2013 when 4 trombonists from a local community band decided to play quartets together. It has grown over the years to play a wider range of music at a higher level.

Today’s Star City Bone Quartet is made up of Ed Griffin, Spencer Taylor, Nathan Simpson and founder Matt Lombard.

We are available for church services, ceremonies, parties, retirement homes, school musical entertainment or education. We’ve even played a couple of funerals. (Drei Equali was the trombone quartet played at Beethoven’s funeral). We generally play unamplified. We range from renaissance, classical and sacred to show tunes, jazz and rock.

If you like live music, we can put together a show for you. Use the Contact link above to get the ball rolling.

Our folders have nearly 150 tunes, and we’re rotating in new and better music as often as we can find it. Often we’ll learn a couple new tunes for a special event. We’re kind of selective about the charts we keep. If it’s not better than what we already have, we don’t keep it. So we’re always trying to improve our repertoire not just with better performances on our part, but also better music. Not all music writing is created equal.

We’ve been meeting weekly for over 10 years, and rotate in new players as openings come up. Matt is an original (founding) member, and plays bass bone. Ed, Spencer and Nathan are all accomplished professionals, and enthusiastic about the group.

Here’s the group in action playing Georgia On My Mind:

You might notice the trombone has kind of a vocal quality about it. It’s less harsh than a trumpet and more distinct than French horns or baritones. These recordings were made at Bonsack Baptist at an afternoon concert there.

Here we are again playing a classical tune, Pastime With Good Company, written by Henry VIII if you can believe that:

Next we have a little fun with one of my favorite tunes called Sticky Slide Swing: