JOSE JAMES - The Dreamer

Spiritual, physical, intense, languid or visceral, black music has always been the music most steeped in sex and decadence, even if excessive cross-contamination has cost it much of its allure. For many years now, a soul-jazz album has rarely accompanied my evenings. But suddenly here comes a singer from Minneapolis landing in Brooklyn, enchanting a crowd that's grown jaded and reluctant to get excited about jazz-soul free of commercial winking.
Closer to Gil Scott Heron, Jon Lucien or Terry Callier, the twenty-eight-year-old José James offers, with “The Dreamer”, an enchanting and intense album of nocturnal, sensual jazz, without venturing into the genre-crossover territory that would have opened the doors to the dancefloor, cheapening a repertoire more devoted to John Coltrane than to James Brown. And it was precisely a cover of John Coltrane's “Equinox” that won over Gilles Peterson, so much so that he signed José James to his London label Brownswood Bubblers.

“The Dreamer” is an intense album with no weak moments. Romantic ballads and splendid frescoes straddling jazz and swing captivate the listener, while hip-hop and drum'n'bass touches slip in without undermining the project's spiritual core.
Piano, bass and drums are the basic ingredients, but it's also José James's voice that displays an unusual emotional intensity.
As a composer, too, James reveals considerable skill, though one of the album's high points is the splendid version of Roland Kirk's blues number “Spirits Up Above”, which benefits from the prestigious presence of Junior Mance. Another cover, “Nola”, is one of the album's most delicate and romantic moments.

The six original tracks stand out as small new classics. The slow ballad “The Dreamer” enchants with its rigor and charm, marked by a poignant sax sound, while the full-bodied “Velvet”, with its ever-essential arrangements, already sounds like an evergreen. The romantic piano ballad “Winter Wind” is another small masterpiece of rarefied, poetic tones, while “Blackeyedsusan” falls within the most glorious jazz tradition, with writing deeply indebted to Coltrane. Completing this trio of masterpieces is “Park Bench People”, a track by the underground hip-hop band The Freestyle Fellowship which, though reworked in a more strictly jazz vein, retains its intensity and beat.

A voice both classic and modern, a repertoire of the highest compositional and performing standard, make “The Dreamer” an essential album, not only for lovers of jazz and soul, but for anyone seeking great albums beyond fashion and time. A future classic.

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04/09/2008