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Jose James Biography

José James (born January 20, 1978) is an American vocalist best known for performing and blending modern jazz and hip-hop. James performs all over the world both as a bandleader and with other groups.

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Jose James Quotes

All my stuff is pretty seamless - like now, while I'm touring [Yesterday I Sang The Blues], today I'm going to go in the studio, I'm writing my next one. For me it's continual.

Like, Stuff, Touring, Writing, Yesterday

If you look at the other singers of Billie Holiday's time, they were really trying to entertain. They were trying to make people feel good. They were singing fast - and she was singing the blues.

Entertain, Feel Good, Holiday, Look, People

For better or for worse, I think my approach to jazz is very traditional, in one sense, but is [also] very out of fashion today. It's about the musicians, and it's about that magic that happens in the moment.

Fashion, Happens, Jazz, Magic, Thinking

I'm listening to a lot of Drake, and a lot of Frank Sinatra just because it's his centennial also. I'm going to be doing some tributes to him this year. I love that Beck album. It was funny to me because my two favorite albums of the year were definitely the Beyonce album and the Beck album.

Funny, Listening, Sinatra, Two, Years

[Billie Holiday] was keeping it super real, and you can feel that to this day. Everything that she sang, she believed in. So I had to pick songs that I felt the same about.

Day, Holiday, Pick, Real, Song

There used to be a club in new york called Bradley's - I've never been there, it closed in the 80's - but I used to study with Junior Mance, and he would tell me about Bradley's. It was a very important place for a generation of jazz musicians in New York. It was really all about pianists there.

Closed, Club, Important, Musician, Musicians, New York

The level of musicianship in New York is the highest in the world. It's tough to get into. You start gigging making 50 dollars a night, or playing for nothing to get to something. It's insane. It's like being a modern dancer, or something - the hardest thing to make money from.

Dancer, Hardest, Insane, Night, Start

Chico Hamilton told me, "The first take is important in jazz because that's where the real emotion is. " That's your true response to what's happening, and everything else after that, your brain is involved because you have something to reference.

Brain, Chico, Everything, Important, Real, Told

I go by the "Miles Davis school of production and band-leading", where you pick the best musicians you can, you provide them with a minimum of direction, and you just let the music happen. I've seen it work time and time again.

Band, Musician, Production, School, Seen, Work

When I sort of step in my jazz world, it's somewhere between instrumental jazz and vocal jazz.

Jazz, Sort, Steps, World

Jason [Moran] and John [Patitucci] and Eric [Harland] knew it was a Billie Holiday tribute. I'm sure they assumed it was going to be like another singer date, where we just have a bunch of charts and they write them down and they got paid and kind of moved on. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not what I intended.

Eric, Harland, Holiday, Moved On, Writing, Wrong

I love that [ late-50s Verve recordings] - to me, that's the epitome of vocal jazz. It's my favorite style and era of it.

Epitome, Eras, Jazz, Recordings, Style

There's a more experimental album that follows that, which is like Black Magic and While You Were Sleeping. Then there's a return to jazz, For All We Know and Yesterday I Sang The Blues. It wasn't like a planned thing, I just kind of realized it when I made a list of my albums. Like, oh wow, this is exactly what I did before.

Black, Planned, Sang, Sleep, Thing, Yesterday

I'm pretty much always planning two albums ahead.

Ahead, Albums, Planning, Two

Once I had the band, Jason [Moran] and John [Patitucci] and Eric [Harland] - it's very exciting to have that trio of just world-class guys - I already knew it was going to be fantastic. I didn't really tell them anything about it. They didn't know what they were going to play beforehand.

Beforehand, Class, Eric, Guy, John, Play

I don't get writer's block. I don't try to write anything; when something comes, I write it. I just practice and when I get an idea I write it down.

Block, Practice, Trying, Write, Writing

For me, the difference between a musician reading an arrangement on a piece of paper, and them closing their eyes and listening to what's happening around them and responding to it, is huge.

Arrangement, Closing, Differences, Eye, Listening, Reading

I've sort of realized there's a definite pattern to my output at this point: there's an album that everybody sort of loves, that's a real balance between the old and new, like The Dreamer or No Beginning No End, like a blend of jazz and hip-hop, or r&b and soul and hip-hop.

Everybody, Hip Hop, Loves, Pattern, Real, Soul

When I start working on a new album, I kind of stop listening to a lot of outside stuff just so I can kind of focus.

Albums, Focus, Kind, Listening, Stop

Jose James Biography

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