Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Southern California Fires Hit the Jazz Community
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
The decision to stick to just piano and saxophone gives Just Us a flavor unlike any recording Bob James (left) or Dave Koz has ever done.
(Photo: Tyler Franz)Contemporary jazz icons Bob James and Dave Koz will be touring the U.S. together this spring as a piano-and-saxophone duo under the billing “Just Us–An Intimate Evening of Songs and Stories.” The tour takes its name from their forthcoming duet album, scheduled for release on March 7 via Just Koz Entertainment.
The two artists recorded the album in James’ hometown of Traverse City, Michigan, where they will kick off the tour headlining The Alluvion on March 13. The “Just Us” tour will also include shows at the Mesa Arts Center in Mesa, Arizona (March 15); Studebaker Theatre in Chicago (March 22); The Parkway in Minneapolis (March 25); and Jazz Alley in Seattle (April 1).
“Recording this album with Bob James was one of the greatest life (and music) experiences for me — I learned so much from this treasure of a man,” Koz said. “This duet project is just acoustic piano and saxophone, in all their raw beauty. Talk about being vulnerable! But with Bob at the piano, all concern goes away … like playing on a bed of clouds. I can’t wait to perform these songs with him in front of a live audience.”
“This is a totally unplugged and, as partner Dave points out, vulnerable set,” James added. “Both he and I have had the good fortune to record many times with great rhythm sections and sophisticated production. This time out, all that is stripped away, and it’s just us. We hope the intimacy of these musical one-to-one conversations conveys the spirit we both felt. It was a unique opportunity for me to collaborate and be inspired by the passionate romanticism of my duo partner.”
The Just Us album is collection of originals and colorful re-imaginings of Great American Songbook standards. Its inspired format, sans the support of a traditional rhythm section, liberates both musicians to venture spontaneously beyond the trademark sounds that fueled their superstardom and years of Billboard chart-topping successes.
Making the decision to stick to just piano and saxophone gives the album a flavor that’s worlds away from any recording James or Koz has ever done. “Every time we started into a new tune,” James recalled, “I realized that if I don’t have drums or bass, I have to figure out how to fill that space in with the piano. In the end, we loved the purity of the sound and freedom of filling in those spaces ourselves. We’re doing it this way when we perform this music live as well — no backup band with a short duo segment, but just us all the way through.”
The recording came about spontaneously after Koz invited James to headline the main showroom aboard the Seaborn Ovation in September 2024 as part of Somma Italia, the saxophonist’s inaugural Somma Cruise, a luxury extension of the Dave Koz Cruise. James agreed on one condition: that the two create a new recording to give to attendees.
Recorded at James’ house just weeks before the voyage sailed, the souvenir recording featured the two songs that kick off and provide the foundation for Just Us: the soulfully swaying James original ballad “Sommation” (whose title cleverly references the cruise) and a passionate rendition of the standard “My Ship” (inspired by the pianist’s memory of Miles Davis’ 1957 arrangement of the classic Kurt Weill/Ira Gershwin composition). Finding themselves on a freewheeling roll, the two also recorded a silky, highly improvisational rendition of Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile” and the first of two co-writes, the whimsical “T W O,” during that first session.
James explained, “We started having fun and one thing led to another. We weren’t thinking of recording an album but everything unfolded. After the cruise, Dave returned to my house and we just kept going. We did almost everything there and finished up later in Dave’s home studio in L.A.”
They recorded four originals in their second session: “New Hope,” the high-spirited “The Naked Ballet,” the classical-leaning “Protea” and the French-flavored ballad “Rue de Rivoli,” plus a romantic version of “All The Way.” The third and final session brought forth the buoyant “Fountain D’Alice” and a lighthearted swing through “On The Sunny Side Of The Street.” The latter is a bonus track, available only on the physical edition of the album.
Koz observed, “In this digital age, artists can have as many tracks as they want to record a song. Each one takes up sonic space. If you only have two instruments, as we have here, taking up the entire sonic space, each can be heard in a much clearer, bolder, bigger way. It’s amazing and scary because we hear all the breaths, clicks and pad noise. Those who go on this ride with us will hear our instruments in a whole new way.” DB
Gerald and John Clayton at the family home in Altadena during a photo shoot for the June 2022 cover of DownBeat. The house was lost during the Los Angeles fires.
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