Straight Up – Eric Alexander & Jim Rotondi

With its stop-time "kicker" at the beginning, Straight Up makes a great set opener or closer for any lineup. This uptempo song is a blues with a bridge: AABC in which the A and C sections are 12-measure blues. The blues changes on the head are slightly altered, not returning to the tonic after the IV chord but instead rising toward D7 (VI7). There is no melody on the bridge, which is related to the "rhythm changes" bridge with some tritone sub II-V7s. In the solos, the A and C sections use standard blues changes. The ending adds a rising diminished pattern in the last two measures of the melody. Our lead sheets show the top line of the piano voicings for rhythmic hits in the last two measures of the second A section.

About the arrangement: Second parts and Concert Condensed Score are available for the quintet arrangement from this recording. The horns start in octaves, with the tenor sax adding a countermelody with the changes in the 5th through 7th measures. The end of the A section is voiced in fifths, and the ending in sixths. The first measure an octave below the melody goes too low for alto sax, so our alto 2nd part starts in unison with the melody.

The printed score and parts for this sextet arrangement is available from Second Floor Music at MusicDispatch.com—it's part of a One For All sextet set, but the lead sheets are available here. This slightly faster sextet version adds a melody on the bridge—bebop-styled eighth-note lines contrasting with the blues vocabulary of the A section. Also added are horn backgrounds for the piano solo, a send-off for the drums, and a longer ending that extends the final phrase in a series of fermatas. Our printed arrangement also has four other horn backgrounds based on Jim Rotondi's solo from this recording.