The Best Is Yet to Come
Grover Washington Jr.
Where "Mister Magic" floats, "The Best Is Yet to Come" leans forward with quiet anticipation. Built around a melody most listeners will recognize from Frank Sinatra's classic reading, Washington strips away the brassy confidence of the standard and replaces it with something more inward — a contemplative tenderness that suggests the lyric's optimism has been earned through some measure of loss. His alto saxophone here is warmer and slightly more burnished than his soprano work, with a vibrato that surfaces only at phrase endings, adding just enough vulnerability to keep the sweetness from tipping into sentimentality. The rhythm section provides a gentle rhythmic cushion — brushed drums, fluid electric bass, Rhodes piano voicings that open like slow exhales. Washington improvises modestly around the melody rather than departing from it dramatically, which is itself an interpretive choice: this is a song about holding something close, not showing off. The overall feeling is one of mature hopefulness, the kind that coexists with knowledge of difficulty rather than ignoring it. It suits the hour just before sleep, or the quiet reflection after a significant event — a graduation, a farewell, a reconciliation — when the future feels both uncertain and genuinely promising.
slow
1970s
warm, soft, contemplative
American jazz standard reinterpretation
Jazz, Smooth Jazz. Jazz ballad. hopeful, contemplative. Opens in inward tenderness and moves toward a mature hopefulness that coexists with knowledge of difficulty, never tipping into sentimentality.. energy 2. slow. danceability 2. valence 6. vocals: instrumental, no vocals. production: alto saxophone with warm burnished tone and restrained vibrato, brushed drums, fluid electric bass, Rhodes piano voicings. texture: warm, soft, contemplative. acousticness 4. era: 1970s. American jazz standard reinterpretation. Quiet reflection just before sleep or after a significant life moment — a graduation, a farewell, a reconciliation — when the future feels both uncertain and genuinely promising.