Season 5: Jose James Brings Hip Hop Cool to International Jazz Audiences

Acclaimed international jazz artist Jose James has a composure about him that one might compare to James Bond.

 

The Minneapolis native claims he was one of the least talented artists in his music circles growing up, yet he ultimately attended The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. His first album, The Dreamer, debuted in 2008. Since then, he’s gone on to play at the Kennedy Center, The Hollywood Bowl, Ancienne Belgique, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Melbourne Symphony and has recorded 11 more records including his latest which dropped April 5—the stunning album 1978, named for the year of his birth.

 

Along the way, he’s picked up honor after honor in establishing himself as an extraordinary jazz singer/songwriter—but one built for the hip-hop generation. Pitchfork called him, “one of the suavest vocal improvisers on the scene,” and it’s been said his arrangements and approach are “in deep conversation with funk, R&B, and hip-hop.”

 

Despite oozing cool, he’s not really all about himself. You quickly understand that James lives for the collaboration and building art that he loves with others.

 

“I really grew up with this idea that you make music with a band, with other people,” he told me recently on The Load Out Music Podcast. 

He grew up feeling the diverse vibes of bands ranging from the Ohio Players and Peter, Paul and Mary found in his mother’s record collection; the funky global beats of his multi-instrumentalist father’s band, Ipso Facto; the western church music of his Catholic school and diverse artists such as Nirvana, 10,000 Maniacs, De la Soul, A Tribe Called Quest and Grammy-winner Bobby McFerrin who was the creative chair of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra for a time in the early 1990s.

When he was 17, James attended a McFerrin concert with the noted jazz pianist Chick Corea. It was then that he was hooked on the idea that a career in music was inevitable—but he still was surprised that others saw it as well.

“Wow,” James said. “People see something in me that I might not see. I didn’t really go to college. I didn’t want to do the traditional route. I was like, I can have a coffee shop job and pay my rent and see what happens. This is where my spirit is taking me.”

Despite a love for jazz, early on James understood that jazz could be limiting and wanted to explore the boundaries of the genre.

“There is a strong jazz radio, but it’s pretty strict about what they play,” he sai