Eyes Have It – Steve Davis

Trombonist Steve Davis began his career as a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and that band's influence is on display throughout The Eyes Have It. It's a shuffling minor-key blues with a bridge, full of slick hard-bop rhythms and with plenty of dynamic contrasts. The A section melody stays almost entirely in the blues scale, beginning with a long one-note crescendo and breaking into stop-and-start triplet phrases. The piano and bass have a rhythmic bass line throughout the A section, filling in the long notes of the melody. The bridge is 12 measures like the A section and features stop-time hits with piano solo fills for the first eight measures. The changes here imply C blues, but instead of a turnaround in the last four measures there is a rising series of II-V7s going back to G minor. On these last four measures of the bridge, the rhythm section plays staccato quarter notes—a "blues march."

On the solos, the rhythm section plays 4-feel for the A sections but keeps the stop-time and "blues march" in the bridge. The rhythm section sets up this song with one A section of the bass line as an intro. There is also a coda, in which the rhythm section vamps the first two measures of the same bass line leading to a final diminished chord. As the horns do not play in the coda, it is only shown in our piano and bass parts; on the horn parts the coda is indicated by the text "rhythm section only to end."

About the arrangement: A Condensed Score and horns, piano and bass parts are available for the recorded arrangement. Drummers should read the bass part as it includes the coda. Our 1st parts are also the lead sheets, which can be used if playing this song with only one melody instrument. The horns play unison or octaves on the A section and harmony on the bridge, with the 2nd and 3rd parts joining the rhythm section hits for the last four measures of the bridge. David Hazeltine's recorded voicings are included in the piano part.