The last time I heard trombonist Conrad Herwig, he was on a stage in Barranquilla, Colombia, backing up Latin pianist Eddie Palmieri. Last year's concert, performed before an estimated 25,000 fans, was part of annual Colombian jazz festival featuring national and international artists that began in Medellin before ending in the capital city of Bogota.

"That was an awesome tour, and Colombia is crazy about jazz," said Herwig between classes at Rutgers University, where he teaches jazz trombone, improvisation and arrangement. "There's only one person in Colombia that's more famous than Mick Jagger, and that's Eddie. They absolutely love Eddie in Colombia." (Actually, the most famous Colombian musician at this point is Shakira, the diminutive singer who hails from Barranquilla.)

Herwig has performed with Palmieri for more than 20 years, but tomorrow night he will break away to lead his own group with trumpeter Brian Lynch into the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild. The program, titled, "Miles, 'Trane and Wayne," shines a spotlight on the music of Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter.

"We're really excited about the project," Herwig said. "We started doing the Latin side of John Coltrane over 10 years ago. It started after the association with Eddie because he played a lot of tunes that are modal and bluesy so we would super-impose John Coltrane tunes on top of that."

Eventually, Herwig decided to take some of Coltrane's songs and apply Afro-Caribbean rhythms to them.

"We started doing that, and one thing led to another," he continued. "Then we followed that with the music of Miles and Wayne. These are musicians that we have admired our entire careers."

Herwig, who grew up in Hawaii and started playing trombone at an early age, said he wasn't as attracted to the trombone as much as it was attracted to him.

"When I was in the fourth grade, I was the only kid that had long enough arms to play the trombone," he said with a chuckle. "The band director took one look at my arms and said, 'Kid, you have to be a trombone player.' That was the extent of the audition. I was also a big kid, so I fit the trombone profile."

Herwig said his teacher was a student of Trummy Young, the great trombonist who performed with Jimmie Lunceford and Louis Armstrong.

"When Louis Armstrong died, Trummy moved to Hawaii with his wife, so I would go over to Trummy's house. That was the very first jazz I ever heard. He would make me play a blues, and I idolized everything he did."

After graduating from high school, Herwig attended North Texas State University, which has a long tradition of producing great jazz players. While there, he performed with pianist Red Garland and was later hired by trumpeter Clark Terry.

"I ended up leaving North Texas and moved to New York," Herwig said. "We toured all over Europe, and it was an incredible experience."

After leaving Terry's band, Herwig hooked up with Buddy Rich, played with Slide Hampton and other great musicians.

"As a trombone player, I always love playing Latin music, so I eventually hooked up with Mario Bauza's Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra. He was the godfather of Afro-Cuban music. Mario got me a gig playing with Max Roach."

Later, Herwig met Palmieri and Tito Puente and started playing in their groups. "I was working in all kinds of salsa bands, and it was great. Now, I am working on this project, and it's truly a labor of love."