‘Espresso’ is the #2 Jazz Album on Billboard!
If you haven’t heard it yet, you are missing out…Get your copy today!
‘Espresso’ is the #2 Jazz Album on Billboard!
If you haven’t heard it yet, you are missing out…Get your copy today!
August the 31st will see the release of Bob James new solo album titled “Espresso” on the Evosound label. This album marks his first solo album since the 2006 release, “Urban Flamingo” and sees Bob James return to a largely acoustic piano trio setting.
Bob James has had a long and highly successful career ranging from his hit albums in the 1970’s on Creed Taylor’s CTI label through to the success of Fourplay, one of the most successful groups in the adult contemporary jazz genre. Bob James is truly an artist not limited by genre, he composed the theme music for the late 70’s hit TV series “Taxi”, found popular success overseeing significant hits for Paul Simon, Neil Diamond, Maynard Ferguson, and Kenny Loggins as well as producing a number of hybrid classical recordings. Recently I had the great pleasure of spending some time speaking with Bob about the new release, the early days with CTI and highlights from his almost 5 decade long career. This article is an abridged version of our in-depth conversation, the full version will appear in the next edition of the Jazz In Europe Magazine.
After some small talk about the weather, we moved on to speaking about the new album and of course the question arose as to the reason for the 12 year gap between recordings. Bob’s last solo release was his “Urban Flamingo” album released in 2006. Bob replied “Good question, part of it had to do with Fourplay, we’d been recording and touring a great deal and also in that period I did a major project with David Sanborn. We hadn’t collaborated since the 80’s Double Vision project. We spent a great deal of time not only preparing for the recording (Quartette Humaine – ed) but also touring. So, it’s not like I haven’t been busy, for some reason I just didn’t focus in on it.” He went on to say, “In 2015 I also did a project with Nathan East, a record called “The New Cool” and a live recording project titled “Live at the Milliken Auditorium” that I recorded in a theatre here in Traverse City where I live, so there’s been stuff out there but committing to my own solo studio project just didn’t happen. Finally I said, enough is enough, I’ve just got to do it.”
Bob’s new album “Espresso” is stylistically diametrically opposed to the Urban Flamingo album and sees James return to the piano trio format. Bob explained that the impetus for the new album started last year and stems from a number of live trio dates he played with long term collaborator on drums Billy Kilson and bassist Michael Palazzolo “I was loving the way they blended and fit in with my music and I was feeling a kind of response from the audience that they wanted more of it. So, it was this that allowed me to zero in and commit to the trio format as the basis for a new project.” Bob went on to say that he also wanted to tour the project and the classic setting of Piano, Bass and Drums was not only easier to organise, but had always been his favourite format. He added that “in a way felt like I was re-connecting with the dream he had going back to his college days.”
“It seemed a good time for me to explore what I was going to do,” says James from his home in Minnesota, away from the country’s major music cities. “For many years, the main part of my dream has been to perform in a classic trio setting, where the piano is the prominent instrument and has control over the musical direction. On lots of other projects where I collaborated, I discovered how much I like being an accompanist.”
Even with the group Fourplay, a very popular group he co-founded that blends jazz, pop and funk, his role leaned to support and arranging. “I collaborated recently with David Sanborn, In that role, the piano plays a significant part, but not the main role. I didn’t know whether I’d become cowardly and was not ready to commit to it, but suddenly the timing seemed right. Actually, there was one particular booking last fall in New York where I played a week at the Blue Note with this same rhythm section that ended up on my album project (Billy Kilson on drums and Michael Palazzolo on bass). We had such a good time and I felt so comfortable playing some new music I composed. The audience response gave me more encouragement. So I decided to plunge in and do it.”
‘Espresso’, from the Bob James Trio Debuts at #1 on Apple Music Jazz Chart.
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Which jazz pianist who recorded his first album in 1962 went on to have a significant influence on contemporary music in the decades to follow? If you answered ‘Herbie Hancock,’ you’d be correct. Same if you answered with ‘Bob James.’ And also like Hancock, James is still very much in the game.
Espresso (August 31, 2018 from Evolution Music Group) is slated to be James’ first release as a leader since Urban Flamingo from 2006(!) and a sort-of return to where he’d begun, leading a piano trio with some new originals and old covers as he did with Bold Conceptions. But while James is feeling nostalgic, there are limits to his nostalgia, else he wouldn’t have picked dynamic players like Billy Kilson (drums) and the young, up-and-coming Michael Palazzolo (acoustic bass) to fill out his latest trio.
James has made some successful returns to his roots before (Straight Up and Take It From The Top) but he’s best known in the contemporary jazz arena, making a series of lite funk-jazz records in the mid-70s that were classics of the sub-genre and as one of the mainstays in the smooth jazz supergroup Fourplay since the early 90s. The Fourplay gig, various collaborative projects with David Sanborn and Nathan East and other musical endeavors have kept him plenty busy, and he didn’t really need to do this. But that was before being inspired to take another stab at leading a date following weeklong gig with Kilson and Palazzolo at New York’s Blue Note club last year.