Jose James Interview

Brownswood's answer to Coltrane talks music...

Gilles Peterson has an incredible eye (and an ear) for talent, with past signings including Roni Size & Reprazent and 4Hero. So upon hearing the news that he’d signed Jose James, an unknown twenty-something New York jazz singer, to his label Brownswood, a lot of people got extremely hot under the collar. Hearing Jose’s music, it doesn’t take long to realise what caught Gilles’ attention. His sound is stripped-down jazz that is both fresh and authentic all at once; embracing the music’s history whilst putting his own unique and personal stamp on it. His album has been on constant rotation here in The End’s office throughout 2008, and with his single ‘Park Bench People’ about to drop, we caught up with him for a chat.

Endclub.com: Hi Jose, where are you now and what are you up to?

Jose James: Just getting ready to get out of here tomorrow, I’m going to Tokyo for Gilles’ Worldwide Tokyo night at Liquid Rooms.

Having released your album through Brownswood, a UK based label, have you not considered relocating from New York?

To be honest I think about moving out of America all the time, it’s just so expensive to live in Europe man it really is, that’s the bottom line. That and also the musicians are just so good here. Not that they’re not good in the UK, but there’s just so many more good musicians here. The best musicians in the UK work all the time; you see the same dudes working with every band coming out you know what I mean? At the time I wrote my album I was really interested in trying to have the same band and work with the same people throughout.

So did you achieve that? Is it the same musicians throughout ‘The Dreamer’?

It’s all the same musicians except the drummer changed about half way through the project. The softer sound on the ‘The Dreamer’ and ‘Black Eyed Susan’ is this guy Luke Damrosch who was just eighteen when he made it, so young, it’s crazy. Then we got this guy Steve Lyman, he brought a harder sound, and we used him on everything else. The first guy’s cymbals are really warm, jazzy and open, the other guy, he’d do things like put tape on the cymbals, make them more clanky, always doing different stuff.

So were you a follower of Gilles Peterson before getting signed to Brownswood?

I knew about him, I had some of his compilations and I listened to his radio shows and stuff, but I didn’t actually know Brownswood existed. It was really early in the label’s life, and they were just working on Ben Westbeech’s album, so it was a total shock man. I was just over in the UK for this jazz competition and was handing out my EPs, he got one of them and emailed me about a month later and was like “yeah I wanna sign you to my record label”, I was like “holy shit!” Haha…

So what tracks were on that original demo EP?

‘Central Park West’, ‘The Dreamer’, another song of mine and two John Coltrane covers ‘Equinox’ and ‘Resolution’.

Did those versions change much before being used on the album?

Just mastered man, they were pretty much ready to go. That was one of the reasons Gilles was so interested, when he heard it he was like “who is this dude?” He heard ‘Equinox’ and ‘The Dreamer’, and ‘Equinox’ happened to be one of his favourite John Coltrane songs, so it was perfect! He had no idea who I was because we never got to actually meet, so he couldn’t tell if I was some old dude or a new guy – everybody thinks I’m some really old dude because of the way I sound. So he was trying to work out if I was maybe some undiscovered jazz dude from the 50s, you know what I mean? There are those people around, some Ibrahim Ferrer types, you know!

So what happened to the John Coltrane tracks? How come they didn’t end up on the album?

‘Equinox’ was going to be on the album, and I also recorded ‘Resolution’, but we didn’t get the rights at the last minute, which was a real drag. Alice Coltrane had a lot more say when she was alive, I think it was just her making all the decisions in fact, then after she died things got way more complicated – I think there were six kids or something like that. I was really disappointed actually, and Gilles was heartbroken man, because that was kind of the whole reason we both wanted to do the project. I was talking to Dwight Trible about the same thing about two weeks ago and he agreed, it seems they want people to remember him and have tributes and stuff, but they don’t really want the work changed, it’s like this whole yes-you-can-no-you-can’t thing…it’s a shame.

The album itself has a real vintage quality, yet has an appeal that can really draw in the occasional jazz listener. Is this something you set out to achieve?

That vintage quality as you describe it was definitely the production goal. I wanted something really classic sounding, especially for the first album, because it’s really important to stamp your mark, and say “this is who I am”, so people have a reference point. The whole concept of how we recorded was very important; we did a lot of it first take, real jazz style; all together, rehearse a little bit before, walk in the studio, do two takes and go home. The only bits I did any contemporary stuff to was when I had to overdub ‘Park Bench People’ and ‘Spirits Up Above’, and then some editing, because we had really long tracks! It was a dream come true though, especially working with Gilles and Brownswood, they gave me so much creative control man, and I just wouldn’t have got that from a Verve or a Blue Note or whatever. In terms of getting people excited about jazz, that was definitely an aim, that’s one of the reasons I still do jazz. What we do, especially with the live show, is present jazz in a way that people can listen to without feeling beat over the head by it. I once walked into an art gallery and I saw two chairs stacked on each other and that’s all it was! Apparently it was some really important piece, and I was like come on, it’s just two chairs! And that’s like a lot of jazz now I think. I really want to be a bridge between the two…

So how did you get into jazz in the first place?

I was always into hip hop, and it was the hip hop samples I think. Guru and his Jazzmatazz project, Digable Planets, A Tribe Called Quest, they sampled a lot of stuff like Red Clay, so I think I was kind of used to it in my head as a result. I was like, if these dudes are saying it’s cool then I should check it out. I didn’t really understand it but I wanted to, and then one day it all made sense. It’s not like I gave up listening to everything else, but I just thought wow this is really interesting, because it has this huge, rich history that nobody talks about, which is really weird, and I think that’s why a lot of people get so fanatical about it, because you have to dive in and discover it for yourself.

The J.A.M. track ‘Jazzy Joint’ you’ve got on your Myspace at the moment is brilliant. Are there any more of these guest vocal turns coming up this year we should be on the look out for?

So much stuff man. I’ve been working with Nicola Conte, I did three tracks on his album, and two tracks for the album after that! He’s kind of like me, but more hardcore, I went to his studio and he’s old school for real. But it’s good to work with artists that are so committed to a sound, it’s a different vibe to most artists these days. With a lot of music today everything sounds so perfect it’s almost robotic. All the tracks I love, like Al Green stuff for example, is just one beautiful take man, you can feel the passion in his singing. I’ve also been working with Basement Jaxx on some tracks for a while
for their album, although I don’t know if they’ll end up using them.
They came to New York to work with Yoko Ono and they just gave me a
call like “you wanna come down and try something?” They’re so
mysterious…yet open. That dude Felix is a genius. Being around him,
he just knows exactly what he wants to do, he has such a clear strong
vision and that really inspired me.

I read that you are working with Flying Lotus on tracks for your next album. Judging by your track with him ‘Visions of Violet’ this would mean a bit more of a hip hop direction. Is that the case?

Well we started that one for one of his albums, and he’s decided not to use it now. Me and Lotus have been collaborating a lot, he comes from a hip hop, Dilla, Madlib kind of vibe, and he’s definitely pushing things forward. He’s Alice Coltrane’s nephew, and it’s like he’s approaching hip hop and electronic music in the same way that she approached jazz, and the more I hear his stuff the less I call it hip hop. Coltrane got to a point where it was like do you even want to call that jazz anymore, and for me, he’s getting to that point too; where it’s just his thing and you don’t really know what to call it. I’m trying to pay a tribute to the people who inspired me in music and ‘The Dreamer’ was all about Billie Holiday, John Coltrane, a real intimate, warm, searching vibe. The next one is about the influence of Al Green, Marvin Gaye, soul singers that started off as jazz singers, even Ray Charles. I’m probably not going to do a whole album with Lotus but we’ve done about three tracks already and it sounds pretty banging! I definitely want some cuts that people can just dance to in the club, I miss that, Marvin had songs that you could play in the club and that was cool, but this weird vibe has developed where you don’t expect a jazz artist to collaborate with Madlib or Flying Lotus, and I’m all about trying to break something new.

What are your plans for the rest of the summer?

We’re doing a lot of touring and I’ll be continuing to work on the second album, that’s the main focus for me…

Published: 19/05/2008