When Brownswood’s head honcho, Gilles Peterson loaded ‘Jazzy Joint’ with vocals by José James on his myspace site, the buzz surrounding this this track alone got everyone on the message boards in a spin. James’ interpretation ranges from proper jazz vocals, rap to a full scat and pianist Josei’s composition is as much indebted to Jay Dee (a la Robert Glasper) as any jazz legend. Hang on a minute. So you need this track but but is this just a one track album? Not likely, this is fast and sweaty jazz of the kind of Shiftless Shuffle session; phew!
Just in case you’ve not landed on Planet Pimp (also an essential purchase), the connection with A Night of Death Jazz gig at the Roundhouse is that J.A.M are all members of Soil & “PIMP” Sessions’ being Josei (paino), Akita (bass) and Midoin (drums); can you spot why they are called J.A.M?
So like a jazz version on of the London Bus, you wait for one monsterous jazz trio to turn up and then three arrive all at the same time. Granted Twelves Trio are more modaly jazz than the Neil Colwey Trio or J.A.M, but what a wealth of talent they all are.
The thing with J.A.M. is that they cram in such variety into the 13 tracks. One minute they’re in the Pure Fire heritage of the opener, ‘Age Of No Quality’ and follow that with a break neck speed version of George Cables’ ‘Quiet Fire’. Hard to believe that Shiftless Shuffle could go all Northern Soul and have a ‘Modern’ room with all these brilliant new releases (I feel a mixtape coming on).
The rest of the album is mostly written by Josei except for ‘Roy’s Scat’ that was on the classic MAW Nuyorican Soul album that was on Peterson’s previous label Talkin’ Loud. The other Latin inspired tracks are ‘New Things’ with some heavy hand high speed piano for the jazz dancers and ‘道 (Michi)’ with a ‘Berimbeu’ break.
Haven’t heard much of DJ Mitsu The Beats of late but he turns up scratchin’ on the laid back downtempo keyboard tune ‘In The Sea’. But the pace isn’t slow for long as ‘Crecendo’ is back on the piano speed peaks and even the longest track,’Master Of The World’ is fairly pacey and shows the old jazz boys how to do a track where each member of a trio gets to show off without getting into the predictable jazz solo merry-go-round.
This new approach is no doubt why J.A.M have evolved from short mid-Soil & “PIMP” Sessions set to playing live performances in their own right; apparently they got a gig at last years’ Fuji Rock Festival when another band dropped out (Hey! the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra were at the same festival which reminda me, Peterson said this week that he’ll be at the Christmas Shifltess Shuffle again this year with ‘Jazz Room’ legend Paul Murphy).
When you get Just A Maestro, you can have your J.A.M today and have J.A.M tomorrow, the day after and the day after that (and repeat). This stunning debut album ends on a high with the last four tracks and I wouldn’t be surprised if ‘Quiet Passion’ (that is anything but quiet) makes an appearance at Shifltess Shuffle soon; all shout tune!!!!!
No. BWOOD CD032 Release date: September 2008
Tracklisting:
1 Age Of No Quality (1:48)
2 Quiet Fire (4:27)
3 New Things (4:33)
4 In The Sea feat. Scratches by DJ Mitsu The Beats (2:03)
5 Crescendo (3:51)
6 Master Of The World (6:37)
7 Jazzy Joint feat. Jose James (4:10)
8 道 (Michi) (5:07)
9 Roy’s Scat (4:35)
10 Identity Breaker (2:35)
11 Quiet Blue (2:32)
12 Quiet Passion (5:44)
13 Sign (1:42)
Links
www.jvcmusic.co.jp/jam
www.myspace.com/jampianotrio
www.last.fm/music/J.A.M
www.brownswoodrecordings.com
www.myspace.com/brownswoodrecordings
www.myspace.com/mitsuthebeats
www.myspace.com/josejamesquartet
www.josejamesmusic.com
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