Focus – James Williams
This hip composition has a melody that glides and soars. Easy solo piano arrangement available.
- Recording: Dennis Irwin & James Williams - Focus
- Recorded on: December 6, 1977
- Label: Red Records (VPA 132)
- Concert Key: F minor
- Style: Swing (medium up)
- Piano - James Williams
- Bass - Dennis Irwin
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Our audio excerpts give you two very different treatments. James' duo recording with bassist Dennis Irwin was the first recording of Focus. James recorded it three more times himself.
Our lead sheet gives you the big picture. The intro suggestion is sixteen measures of E lydian for the rhythm section. James plays eight measures E lydian (Latin) on the duo recording as an intro that precedes the audio excerpt, which starts right on the melody. Note: the lead sheets under each album cover are identical.
James next recorded Focus in 1980, on his Concord album "Images (Of Things to Come)," using no introduction, starting right on the melody. The feeling is 2-feel uptempo swing (ca. 256) with "time" on the hi-hat for the melody.
Lastly, James recorded another duo version (ca. 248, sixteen-measure E lydian intro) this time with bassist Peter Washington as part of his last expansive 4 CD duo project (from "Jazz Dialogs, Vol 2").
Our lead sheet gives you the big picture. The intro suggestion is sixteen measures of E lydian for the rhythm section. James plays eight measures E lydian (Latin) on the duo recording as an intro that precedes the audio excerpt, which starts right on the melody. Note: the lead sheets under each album cover are identical.
James next recorded Focus in 1980, on his Concord album "Images (Of Things to Come)," using no introduction, starting right on the melody. The feeling is 2-feel uptempo swing (ca. 256) with "time" on the hi-hat for the melody.
Lastly, James recorded another duo version (ca. 248, sixteen-measure E lydian intro) this time with bassist Peter Washington as part of his last expansive 4 CD duo project (from "Jazz Dialogs, Vol 2").
1977 was the first year James recorded professionally. He started the year with his own album, "Flying Colors" on Zim Records. Exactly five months later he recorded his second album, the duo recording with bassist Dennis Irwin. To close out the year, on December 29 and 29, James recorded his first two albums ("In My Prime," volumes 1 & 2) as a member of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers.
Solo Piano Arrangement: Don Sickler's Solo Piano Arrangement is also available. As Don has mentioned in other notes, if he can play it on piano (he's a trumpet player), it's not too hard.
- Recording: James Williams - Images (Of Things To Come)
- Recorded on: June, 1980
- Label: Concord (CJ 140)
- Concert Key: F minor
- Style: Swing (uptempo)
- Tenor Sax - Billy Pierce
- Piano - James Williams
- Bass - Charles Fambrough
- Drums - Carl Burnett
This second version of Focus is much faster than the original duo recording, though quite a bit slower than the drum feature version recorded by Bill Easley. There is no intro. The head has a 2-feel in the bass and a drum groove mostly on the hi-hat. The solos go to 4-feel; the coda is as written.
Tenor saxophonist Billy Pierce plays the melody first in the octave where it's written in our B♭ lead sheet. On the second melody chorus he plays the first eight measures an octave higher.
Tenor saxophonist Billy Pierce plays the melody first in the octave where it's written in our B♭ lead sheet. On the second melody chorus he plays the first eight measures an octave higher.
For more from this album check out Wishful Thinking and Images (Of Things To Come). Charles Fambrough replaced Dennis Irwin in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in 1980. Billy Pierce joined the Messengers at the same time.
Solo Piano Arrangement: Don Sickler's Solo Piano Arrangement is also available. As Don has mentioned in other notes, if he can play it on piano (he's a trumpet player), it's not too hard.
- Recording: Bill Easley - Wind Inventions
- Recorded on: September 1 & 2, 1986
- Label: Sunnyside (SSC 1022D)
- Concert Key: F minor
- Style: Latin (uptempo)
- Clarinet - Bill Easley
- Piano - Mulgrew Miller
- Bass - Victor Gaskin
- Drums - Tony Reedus
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Our second audio excerpt comes from Bill Easley's recording and features James' nephew, drummer Tony Reedus, in an arrangement that separates the melody phrases with four-measure drum solos. This recording is uptempo Latin (starting at ca. 292).
The lead sheet also includes James's tag coda that he often used.
The lead sheet also includes James's tag coda that he often used.
Bill Easley first recorded with composer/pianist James Williams in 1977, on James's "Flying Colors" album. He recorded again with James in 1984 and 1985, both times on other albums led by James. In 1990, Bill returned the compliment by inviting James to to play on his first CD as a leader, "First Call.'
Solo Piano Arrangement: Don Sickler's Solo Piano Arrangement is also available. As Don has mentioned in other notes, if he can play it on piano (he's a trumpet player), it's not too hard.
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...