Sioux City – Ryan Kisor

With its simple, singable melody, laid-back medium tempo, and short form, this song is a good starting point to explore the music of Ryan Kisor—particularly fitting, then, that he named it after his home town. Sioux City is in a classic post-bop style, going in and out of its key center with a tasteful mix of II-V7s and other harmonic progressions. The first half of the 16-measure form is more obviously in F, with a diatonic melody; the second half is less predictable melodically and harmonically. The last four chords, major 7ths in a circle of fourths from E♭ to G♭, resolve back to F for the next chorus, though the first chord is A minor, not F. The opening chords of this song are an interesting variant of a III-VI7-II-V7 progression: the second chord is an E triad with G♯ in the bass instead of the expected D7, making smooth resolutions in half steps both in the bass (A-G♯-G) and a third above (C-B-B♭). There are rhythm section hits in the last four measures of the head.

Second parts are available for the two-horn arrangement. On the recording, the in head is played twice; the first time is split between eight measures of guitar melody and eight measures of organ melody, followed by the horns playing the head again. Our audio clip starts just before the horn melody. The horns play unison for eight measures, then octaves for four measures, and the tenor sax hits with the rhythm section for the last four. The out head on the recording is almost the same in reverse order: horns on the melody the first time, then a second chorus with eight measures of guitar melody, four measures of organ melody, and horns again for the last four measures.

The tenor sax second part goes quite low in the second half of the head, so our alto sax second part is an octave higher.