I’ve just completed another arrangement for the Lenoir Saxophone Ensemble (Robert George, David Kirby, Patrick Brown, and Mike Myers).  I heard them perform last November and was really impressed with the group.  Having worked with a couple of them in the past, I knew they were excellent musicians, but their playing was incredibly tight.  They certainly don’t slap their music together, they take a lot of time and effort into rehearsing and getting their music to sound good.  That means I can write what I think will sound cool and not worry so much about how challenging it will be to play.

Here’s my take on the jazz standard Just Friends for them.  It’s a MIDI realization, so you will need to pretend you’re hearing four saxophonists playing with expression and style, rather than a computer.  Brownie points to anyone who can name all the quotes that ended up in this arrangement.

While Just Friends is a tune that most jazz musicians are probably already familiar with, it is very interesting harmonically.  Most notably, the tonic chord of the tune really doesn’t get strongly cadenced until almost the very end of the tune.  It does, however, show up in the 5th measure, but approaches it from an interesting direction.  Since my arrangement is in the key of C major, my example is in that key.

Notice that the first chord is the IV, which then becomes a minor iv, leading to what would be a ii-V in a different key.  Instead of resolving to Eb major, this chord pattern resolves to the I chord.  So what does this progression have to do with a plagal cadence?

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