What is sometimes forgotten about Bob James is that he began recording on the avant-garde ESP Disc imprint, the very same that both Albert Ayler and a young Pharoah Sanders graced during the 1960s. Bob James retains a keen interest for the piano jazz tradition and introduces some tasty blues inflections on the Fats Waller opus, ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’, taken here at a medium pace. The other standard is, perhaps surprisingly, ‘Mr. Magic’, which cemented Grover Washington’s early career, and the piano vamp intro and deft brush work by drummer Billy Kilson leads directly into the famous motif. Thereafter, the piece reverts to a mid-tempo waltz. Throughout his career, Bob James has never shied away from composing for television and, ‘Boss Lady’, very much fits into that category, with a pretty minor theme in evidence. His fusion credentials come to the fore on ‘Topside’, which is a reflective ballad that morphs into a soulful groove of the kind that Ramsey Lewis might have attempted in the mid-late 1960s.
artist | musician | legend