Alana's Fantasy – Justin Robinson

True to its title, Alana's Fantasy really tells a story—both within the head and in the overall form of the song. The head is 14 measures long, at a ballad tempo. The melody is based on a simple 2-measure theme with not much rhythmic variety, but the way this theme shifts around into different tonalities as it is developed gives the song a colorful sound.

At the beginning the melodic and harmonic direction is generally descending, balanced by a rising sequence in measures 7 through 10. The last four measures pivot between Amaj7 and A7(♯9), establishing an A key center; this key is not suggested elsewhere in the head, so our lead sheets have no key signature.

An interesting chord occurs in several places as an extra color to II-V7 progressions: on the fourth beat the II minor chord has a flat 5th and a major 7th. The notes in the first of these, Am♭5(maj7) in the third measure, are A, C, E♭, G♯. This chord could also be labeled Adim(maj7), but its function here is really an alteration of the preceding chord, Am7♭5, with the 7th raised from G to G♯.

Once the head is over, the fantasy has just begun! The solos on the recording go through a variety of tempos and textures, all over a modal A7. Our lead sheets and parts explain what happens on the recording. The bass is the first soloist, beginning rubato but then establishing a medium swing tempo—a little faster than twice the original ballad tempo. The drums come in during the bass solo, and the bass starts a vamp to set up the alto sax solo. During this solo the bass starts walking, continuing for the piano solo; eventually the bass and drums dissolve the time into rubato and the piano plays arpeggios up and down into a final chord to set up the out head.

This solo form can certainly be expanded for more soloists; the different textures can be mixed and matched in however ways you want—for example, if one soloist plays over walking bass the next soloist can go back to the bass vamp.

Second parts are available for the quintet arrangement from the recording. The trumpet plays harmony notes above the alto melody. Our trombone 2nd part is in a lower octave to match our C bass clef lead sheet, for settings with two trombones; if playing with any other melody instrument on the 1st part, trombonists can play the 2nd part an octave higher. The first and second parts can even be the reverse of the recording: trumpet on the melody with alto harmony notes above.