Last Call – Eric Alexander & Jim Rotondi

A medium-slow swinger in the soul-jazz tradition, Last Call has a laid-back feeling but keeps the groove going with a rhythmic bass ostinato. The melody alternates short bursts of 16th-note triplets with longer, more relaxed phrases; it's a blues-infused song throughout though the blues scale is only used at the end of the head. The form is slightly unusual: 28 measures, divided into a first A section of 12 measures and a second A section extended to 16 measures. Basically it's an eight-measure theme alternated with a four-measure first ending and eight-measure second ending.

The ostinato, which alternates G7 and F7 chords, continues until the 7th measure where the rhythm section goes to 4-feel. The harmonic pattern continues with E♭7, going up to E7 to lead into a slightly disguised II-V7 back to G. In the second A section these changes are extended with a chromatically descending "tag" from Bm7, with more added secondary dominant chords in the last cadence. Solos use a 4-feel throughout. The changes in the ostinato sections of the head are written the way they appear in the solos, with G7 on the first beat; on the head it's delayed until the second beat.

A Concert Condensed Score and second parts are available for the quintet arrangement. The horns switch between unison and octaves, harmonizing in thirds only in the first, seventh, and eighth measures. On the recording the tenor sax plays a different harmony note (the seventh of the chord) in the seventh and eighth measures of the second A, but in the out head—which is the second A only—the tenor plays the same as the first A. The coda continues the ostinato vamp and fades out; on the recording Jim Rotondi solos on this vamp, with tenor sax backgrounds coming in after the first two measures.