Trombonist, arranger, and educator Sam Dimov releases his new recording, Homeward, on 29 January 2027. Some albums arrive with a press release. Homeward arrived after years of quiet work, shaped by a decision to leave a decade-long military career and by everything that came before and after it. It is a collection of music composed over several years, and it does not hurry past the hard parts.
Sam Dimov is a trombonist, arranger, and educator based in New York City. A native of the Philadelphia region, he started playing the trombone at age nine. At just 16 he won a position with the 287th Army Band, and five days after his 17th birthday, he enlisted. He went on to serve with the Delaware National Guard for ten years. During that time, he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Jazz Performance from Temple University, began his performing career with jazz, funk, and bluegrass bands, and taught instrumental music in private and school studios.
He later completed a Master of Music in Jazz Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and moved to New York City soon after. Once he arrived, he quickly built a reputation as a freelance trombonist across many projects and disciplines. In shaping his own artistic voice, Sam released his debut album, All Day Affair, in May 2024, followed by his sophomore album, Back For More, in August 2025.
The story of Homeward begins at the very start. The artist entered basic training at 17, and his early years brought a kind of success that many people never see: real professional momentum and the feeling that a door had opened. Then came deployment to a combat zone. The album does not dwell on the details of that time, but it does not look away from what it cost. Coming home brought no hero’s welcome. Instead, there was a long and difficult stretch of struggle, including a battle with substance dependence, and a slow, uncertain process of learning how to live as a civilian again.
The record carries that arc from beginning to end. Its nine selections move through service and brotherhood, through conflict and loss, and eventually through resilience and renewal. The music was written mainly for a quintet of trombone, alto saxophone, piano, bass and drums, with two pieces stepping away from that line-up. “Brother” swaps the alto saxophone for trumpet, and “Seventh Circle” brings in soprano saxophone, giving those two songs a different colour and a different weight. Taken together, the pieces read less like a set of tracks and more like a diary set to sound.
It is worth pausing on that word, because Sam is clear that the overarching story of his military life, and therefore this suite, is shaped by pain, discomfort and trauma. He does not pretend otherwise. What he offers, in his own words, is a glimmer of hope. The album closes with the turning of a page, a deliberate move towards a life beyond military service.
The title is where that hope becomes specific. At its most immediate level, Homeward describes his return from war. More broadly, it marks his departure from military life and the long search for the place where he truly belongs. The word also traces a more practical journey. He moved from Philadelphia to Texas for graduate school, which brought him closer to his parents, who had retired there around the time his military career ended. Later, he chose to relocate to New York City after finishing his studies. For him, that move was another kind of homecoming: a return to the Northeastern United States, and to a place where he could begin building a new sense of who he is.
That is the quiet heart of the record. As Sam puts it, Homeward is not simply about returning to a physical location. It is about finding peace, rediscovering purpose, and creating a life that finally feels like his own.
For anyone who has come back from something heavy and found that the old world no longer fit, that sentiment will land with real weight. It is also a reminder that recovery and reinvention rarely arrive in one clean moment. They are built slowly, through the work of getting up each day and choosing what comes next.
At Occhi, we have always believed that the most important stories in the creative world are the honest ones: the ones that carry scars, admit to mistakes, and still find a way towards the light. Homeward is one of those stories. It asks nothing of its listener except attention, and gives back a quiet, earned sense of hope.
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Image, courtesy of Chris DiGirolamo
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