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.”