Stretching – James Williams
James Williams' tribute to trumpeter Woody Shaw, Stretching is an angular post-bop minor blues head. It was originally recorded on James' first album as a leader, and later by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers.
- Recording: James Williams - Flying Colors
- Recorded on: July 6, 1077
- Label: Zim (ZMS 2005)
- Concert Key: B-flat minor
- Vocal Range: , to
- Style: Swing (uptempo)
- Trombone - Slide Hampton
- Clarinet - Bill Easley
- Tenor Sax - Billy Pierce
- Piano - James Williams
- Bass - Sylvester Sample
- Drums - James Baker
Video
- Description
- Historical Notes
- Solos
- Piano Corner
- Bass Corner
- Drum Corner
- Guitar Corner
- Inside & Beyond
- Minus You
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- Recording: Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers - Reflections In Blue
- Recorded on: December 4, 1978
- Label: Timeless (SJP 128)
- Concert Key: B-flat minor
- Vocal Range: , to
- Style: Swing (uptempo)
- Trumpet - Valery Ponomarev
- Alto Sax - Bobby Watson
- Tenor Sax - David Schnitter
- Piano - James Williams
- Bass - Dennis Irwin
- Drums - Art Blakey
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Video
- Description
- Historical Notes
- Solos
- Piano Corner
- Bass Corner
- Drum Corner
- Guitar Corner
- Inside & Beyond
- Minus You
A Condensed Score is available showing the three-horn arrangement heard on this recording, in which important melody notes are voiced in angular shapes made of seconds, fourths, and fifths. In the first four measures, the trumpet melody is played an octave higher on the repeat of the head; this is indicated in our B♭ lead sheet as well. Though both recordings have three horns, this song works just as well with one melody instrument.
"Reflections In Blue" features a lineup of the Jazz Messengers that existed from late 1977 to 1980, when Billy Pierce and Charles Fambrough replaced David Schnitter and Dennis Irwin.
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James Williams
March 8, 1951 – July 20, 2004
James Williams' distinguished career began in the city in which he was raised: Memphis, Tennessee. Having taken up piano at the age of thirteen, he graduated from Memphis State University in the early seventies and threw himself into his city's jazz community. Only a year after attaining his degree, Williams was hired as a professor at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Coming to a new city opened up an entirely new scene for the young pianist, who began to play as a sideman for visiting artists like Red Norvo, Art Farmer, Sonny Stitt and Milt Jackson. When Art Blakey met him in 1977, he convinced the then-26 year-old Williams to resign from Berklee and go on tour with the Jazz Messengers, a post he held for the next four years and with whom he would win a Grammy Award nomination for the album "Straight Ahead." Read more...