Just The Two Of Us Saxophone Solo — Free Sheet Music PDF

Grover Washington Jr. · Winelight · 1980 · Featuring Bill Withers

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About Just The Two Of Us

Grover Washington Jr., Bill Withers, and the 1981 Pop Sax Masterpiece

Just The Two Of Us was released in January 1981 as the second single from Grover Washington Jr.’s album Winelight, which had come out on Elektra Records in late 1980. Although the album is credited solely to Washington, this particular track features Bill Withers on lead vocals — and it was Withers’s vocal, paired with Grover’s tenor saxophone, that turned a quietly stylish jazz-funk album into a crossover smash. The song reached number two on the US Billboard Hot 100 and went on to win the Grammy Award for Best R&B Song in 1982, with the songwriting credit going to Bill Withers, William Salter and Ralph MacDonald.

Grover Washington Jr. (1943–1999) was one of the architects of what came to be called smooth jazz, but reducing his playing to that label sells the music short. By 1980 he had already spent a decade fusing soul, funk and jazz on albums like Mister Magic and Feels So Good, and his tenor sound — round, vocal, harmonically literate — was instantly recognisable. On Just The Two Of Us he plays an obbligato role behind Withers’s vocal for most of the song, then delivers an extended solo that has become one of the most studied passages in pop saxophone.

The song’s reach extended well beyond its original moment. In 1997 Will Smith released his own version of Just The Two Of Us on the album Big Willie Style, sampling the Grover Washington Jr. recording and reframing the song as a father-to-son tribute. The Smith version reached number twenty on the Billboard Hot 100 and exposed the original to a generation of listeners who might otherwise never have come across it — a key reason the saxophone hook is still instantly recognised by people who would struggle to name Grover Washington Jr. or Bill Withers individually.

The Solo & Why It Works

A Pentatonic Blues Vocabulary Meeting Chromatic Jazz Harmony

The Just The Two Of Us solo is the most ambitious piece of pop saxophone playing on a hit single from its era, and arguably since. What makes it remarkable is the way Grover blends two vocabularies that don’t usually meet on a pop record: the pentatonic blues language of soul and R&B, and the chromatic, harmonically alert language of post-bop jazz. He moves between them mid-phrase, never letting either dominate, and the result sounds effortless rather than studied.

The interlude — the eight-bar melodic hook that returns between the verses and the chorus, and again as the song fades — is the entry point for most students. It sits in the comfortable middle register of the tenor, the rhythms are clear, and the melodic shape is so distinctive that it functions almost as a second vocal hook for the song. Intermediate players can learn the interlude in a few sessions and have something they can play at gigs or parties that listeners will instantly recognise. The full solo that comes later is a different proposition: Grover uses the whole range of the horn, the harmonic landscape moves quickly, and the phrasing is the kind of laid-back-but-precise feel that takes years of listening to internalise.

Three details from the solo are worth flagging before you start. First, Grover’s use of space: many phrases end with a pause that lets the rhythm section breathe before the next idea begins, and that pause is as much a part of the solo as the notes. Second, his time-feel sits noticeably behind the beat throughout — not so much that it drags, but enough that the solo feels relaxed against a tightly-grooving band. And third, the chromatic enclosures: in several places Grover approaches a chord tone from both above and below by a half-step before landing on it, a hallmark of bebop vocabulary that gives the solo its jazz credibility without ever sounding overplayed.

How to Learn the Solo

A Practical Approach for Saxophonists

1. Start with the interlude, not the solo. The eight-bar interlude is the most recognisable part of the song and far easier than the full solo. Learn it from the recording first, copying Grover’s articulation, breath placement and the way he sits slightly behind the beat. This gives you something gig-ready in a week or two, and tunes your ear to Grover’s phrasing before you tackle the harder material. Most students who try to read the full solo straight off the page underestimate how much of it is feel rather than notes.

2. Listen, then transcribe one phrase by ear. Before reading the full solo from the page, pick one short phrase you love from the recording — four bars is enough — and work it out by ear. The dots can’t capture the vibrato, the slight bends, the breath accents or the placement against the beat. Transcribing one phrase yourself, even with the PDF as a safety net, teaches you more about how Grover plays than reading the whole solo ever will. Once you’ve done that, the rest of the written transcription will make more sense.

3. Drill the harmonic landscape. Just The Two Of Us moves around more than a typical pop tune. The verse implies an F minor / A♭ major area (concert pitch — G minor / B♭ major for tenor sax), and the chorus moves through some sophisticated changes. Grover navigates this with a mix of minor pentatonic blues vocabulary and chromatic jazz language. Before playing the solo at tempo, spend time arpeggiating the underlying chords and practising the relevant minor pentatonic and Dorian scales so the harmony feels familiar under your fingers.

4. Settle into the feel. Just The Two Of Us is unhurried. The eighth notes are straight (not swung), the time is laid back, and the whole solo sits behind the beat without ever dragging. Practise with the recording playing in your headphones, not with a metronome — you want to internalise the band’s feel rather than metronomic precision. If you only have time for one piece of advice, this is it: this music lives or dies on the feel.

If you would like one-to-one guidance working through Just The Two Of Us or any pop or jazz solo, saxophone lessons are available in person in South East London or online, with a particular focus on transcription study and developing a strong feel-based approach. You may also find the free saxophone transcriptions page useful — studying how players like Grover, Cannonball Adderley and Ben Webster shaped their solos is one of the most direct routes to building your own vocabulary.

Essential Recordings

Four Versions Worth Knowing

The essential listening is the Grover Washington Jr. featuring Bill Withers (1980) original on Winelight — the recording that defines the song. The album was produced by Ralph MacDonald, recorded in New York, and remains a benchmark for late-period jazz-funk crossover production. The album itself is worth knowing in full: it won two Grammys at the 1982 ceremony, including Best Jazz Fusion Performance.

Beyond the original, work through the Will Smith (1997) version on Big Willie Style, which samples Grover’s recording and reframes the song as a father-to-son tribute — useful as a study in how sampling can preserve a saxophone hook for a new generation. Live recordings of Grover Washington Jr. from the 1980s and 1990s also reward attention: he played Just The Two Of Us throughout his career and the solo varies night to night, which makes them a useful study in how a master improviser treats his own material as raw material rather than a finished text.

If you enjoy this style of pop and jazz-funk saxophone playing, browse the famous saxophone solos index for Baker Street, Careless Whisper, Born To Run and Money — all available with free sheet music.