About | Just US

Rooted in their decades-long friendship and driven by an adventurous spirit of creative camaraderie, contemporary jazz icons Bob James and Dave Koz mark a unique milestone in both their careers with the aptly titled duo album Just Us. A piano and saxophone only collection of fresh originals and colorful re-imaginings of Great American Songbook standards, its inspired format – free from the usual complementary support of a traditional rhythm section – liberates both to venture spontaneously beyond the trademark sounds that fueled their superstardom and years of Billboard chart-topping successes - and into a more spontaneous, organic soundscape ripe with dynamic new possibilities.

Considering the dual albums in their individual discographies, it would make sense for two of the genre’s elder statesmen and still influential figures to have envisioned such a collaboration for a long time. While Double Vision, James’ Grammy®-winning 1986 album with the late David Sanborn, set the template for the rise of the smooth jazz format, the keyboardist also achieved great success with Cool (his 1992 pairing with Earl Klugh), Joined at the Hip (his 1996 set with Kirk Whalum) and Altair & Vega, a 2011 four hand piano work with Keiko Matsui. In 2021, Koz ventured outside his trademark aesthetic on The Golden Hour, a powerhouse dual project with jazz, rock, funk and jam band guitarist Cory Wong.

What sets Just Us apart from all those groundbreaking albums is the emphatic spontaneity of its inception and evolution. Koz had invited James to be a performing guest in the main showroom aboard the Seabourn Ovation in September 2024 as part of Somma Italia, the saxophonist’s inaugural Somma Cruise, a luxury extension of the popular two decades of the mega-popular Dave Koz Cruise. James agreed on one condition – that the two create a pre-recorded new product to give to attendees to complement their overall experience. The two decided to record brand new music together – and each person aboard the ship received a 7-inch vinyl record inside a decorative sleeve as part of their swag.

Recorded weeks before the voyage at James’ house in Traverse City, MI (known as “The Cherry Capital of the World”) the promotional recording featured the two songs that now kick off and provide the foundation for Just Us – the lilting, soulfully swaying James original ballad “Sommation” (whose title cleverly references the cruise) and an elegant, passionate rendition of the standard “My Ship,” inspired by the pianist’s memory of Miles Davis’ 1957 arrangement of the classic from the 1941 Broadway musical Lady in the Dark by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin.

Finding themselves on a freewheeling roll during Koz’s first visit, the two also recorded a silky, highly improvisational rendition of Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile” and the first of two co-writes, the whimsical, playfully conversational “T W O,” developed from a short motif that Koz brought to the session. Those and most of the other pieces were recorded in James’ large living room, with a mic for Koz’s alto and two soprano saxophones set up next to a nine-foot Steinway grand piano.

Scheduled several weeks after the completion of the cruise, the second multi-day session in James’ home included the recording of a reflective romantic twist on “All the Way” and four unique originals that collectively form the emotional core of Just Us. James took another of Koz’s short motifs and stretched it into the charming, high-spirited “The Naked Ballet,” which the saxophonist says “is so rich and different, with flavors of classical baroque. I wasn’t conscious of it as a pop tune or one with a South American influence. A lot of trust has to happen when you have an idea and someone shifts it in a direction you hadn’t thought of.” James adds, “Dave shared a basic melody, and I heard a contrapuntal approach. He started the ball rolling and then I jumped in!”

Also from that second session, “Protea” is a dreamy, soft-spoken classical-tinged James composition, that, along with the frisky, buoyant “Fountain d’Alice,” are compelling tracks that Koz calls “avant-garde pieces of music that don’t have typical song form.” He adds, “They’re sort-of through-composed works, but the interesting and beautiful thing about Bob is his devotion to melody. These pieces are incredibly challenging and had me feeling so emotionally exposed, but they also provided much to sink my teeth into melodically.”

The songs the saxophonist composed that were recorded during that visit include the sweet, lyrical French-flavored ballad “Rue de Rivoli” and “New Hope,” a soulfully soaring, emotionally essential tune for this day and age co-written with Koz’s friend Todd Schroeder on a mutual trip they took to perform in Saudi Arabia. The saxophonist says, “We were overcome and inspired by the endless possibilities that lay in front of us in this new land, the wonderful new people from a distant and often misunderstood culture, and the hope that still surrounds us in our world, even with all the chaos that is so visible seemingly everywhere.” The third and final session, recorded in Koz’s home studio in L.A., included the aforementioned “Fountain D’Alice” and a lighthearted swing through the beloved standard “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” which will appear as a bonus track on the physical copy of the CD only.

James, who at 85 is now in his seventh decade of recording, succinctly explains how a project of originally limited scope and purpose grew into a full-fledged collection: “We started having fun and one thing led to another. It felt kind of easy. 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.

“I know it’s a lot to ask in this age of streaming and playlists,” the pianist adds, “but I hope people will think of Just Us as a vibe album where they don’t take tracks out of context. As an old school artist, I always gravitate towards a full album experience. My last project (the GRAMMY-nominated Jazz Hands) was very eclectic and didn’t have that kind of single through line. This one finds me and Dave being very vulnerable and we respectfully ask our listeners to give us 40 minutes of their time to get into a different mood with us.”

Koz, a nine-time GRAMMY nominee who released his self-titled debut album 35 years ago says, “It was great getting out of my usual environment and tapping into the experience of Bob James’ immersive therapy. It was like being dropped into a whole different world -- spending time with Bob’s family, creating this music in a warm environment amidst great dinner conversation and walks in his garden. It was exhilarating, creating, living and breathing together in the music, almost like a two-ingredient stew in which each song also had its own special ingredients.

“Even through our decades of friendship, I don’t think we could have made this album before this moment,” he adds. “We were emboldened because for a long time we didn’t know we were even making an album. Everything was about our natural musical kinship, represented by the piano and saxophone in all their full, beauty, glory and nakedness. Where else can you hear these instruments without any sonic competition?”

Early on, James and Koz had important conversations about whether they should add a rhythm section as they have traditionally done on their many solo recordings. Making the decision to literally stick to Just Us gives the album a flavor that’s worlds away from any recording James or Koz have ever done – and is a wild departure for two artists iconic for their signature contemporary jazz sounds. With the guidance and encouragement of his loyal piano tuner and current musical director Rachel Kwag, James has been working these past few years on playing at a lower volume and starting from a middle or lower-level range of dynamics. The opportunity to play pianissimo on Just Us fit perfectly into this aesthetic.

“Every time we started into a new tune,” James says, “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. Early on, I asked Dave to click a little on the saxophone to create a rhythm, but we didn’t have fun with that. There are so many ways we could have cheated using a drum machine or backing track, but 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.”

Koz adds, “In this digital age, artists can have as many tracks as they want to record a song. Say you have 100 tracks on a recording. 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. Bob’s piano sounds massive and so does my saxophone. It’s amazing and scary because we hear all the breaths, clicks and pad noise. Those who go on the ride with us will hear our instruments in a whole new way via the full spectrum of sounds that we heard as we were recording.”

“This is what came out of us musically when it was ‘just us’…recorded in Bob's living room, overlooking beautiful Long Lake in Northern Michigan,” says Koz. “We now have the opportunity to invite the listener in to the living room with us for an intimate, heartfelt experience both Bob and I are so proud of--and beyond excited to share."

TRACK LISTING – JUST US

1. Sommation (written by Bob James)

2. My Ship (written by Kurt Weill/Ira Gershwin)

3. T W O (written by Dave Koz/Bob James)

4. All The Way (written by Jimmy Van Heusen/Sammy Cahn)

5. Fontaine d’Alice (written by Bob James)

6. The Naked Ballet (written by Dave Koz)

7. Smile (written by Charlie Chaplin/John Turner/Geoffrey Parsons)

8. Rue de Rivoli (written by Dave Koz)  

9. Protea (written by Bob James)

10. New Hope (written by Dave Koz/Todd Schroeder)  

11. Sunny Side of the Street (bonus track – CD edition only) (written by Jimmy McHugh/Dorothy Fields