In the music world the three Bs traditionally stand for Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. For jazz singer José James they stand for Billie, Bill and Badu (as in Holiday, Withers and Erykah).

His most recent album, On & On, was released at the beginning of this year and finds James putting his own vocal stylings to the songs of Erykah Badu. In 2015 he released Yesterday I Had the Blues: The Music of Billie Holiday and in 2018 he released Lean On Me, a selection of songs by Bill Withers.

This Saturday James concludes his summer US tour in support of On & On at The Ford Theatre in Los Angeles. This will be the first and only show of the tour that will feature his entire band that appeared on the album performing with him live.

Earlier this week I spoke with James about Erykah Badu and her music, lessons he’s learned over the years of his career and the challenges he faces as a jazz singer. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

What does this music that you’re performing mean to you now that is perhaps different than what it meant to you when you first recorded it or when you first started playing it live?

I first approached it from what it meant to me. To me, Erykah Badu is kind of like the Joni Mitchell of my generation. She changed the game with her songwriting, with her musicality, with her presentation, with the way that she effortlessly blended all these genres. So I think I first made the album and thought about it in terms of wanting to respect what she had created and find a way in. Now that I’ve been performing it for quite a while, the songs have sort of become mine.

There’s this beautiful moment where the ownership transfers to the performer. That happened with the Bill Withers project, too. You start putting your own thoughts and feelings and emotions into these songs. It really becomes a deeply powerful way to bring a piece of yourself to these songs that are so familiar to all of us. We’ve been kind of taking it in different directions every night. So now what you have is this deeply personal and deeply creative world that exists alongside Badu’s world.

What is the story you want to tell about yourself through her music? 

I think there’s a degree of deep seriousness these days around what jazz singers can do. Why is hip hop and R&B this impenetrable place that jazz singers can’t go? So to me, it’s really about breaking new ground. I’m always excited when it’s something that nobody’s really done before because it feels fresh and it feels like there’s a discovery here. That’s the most powerful thing we can do as artists.

I played Erykah Badu’s songs and I don’t think what you’ve done is a huge leap. This makes complete sense to me.

It’s not a huge leap. We didn’t completely take apart her stuff and make it atonal or something. That’s part of the history of jazz singers, too. When Ella did her celebrated songbook series, she sang the melody, she sang the songs, but it’s the way that she did it, with the phrasing and the rhythm and the inflection and her history that made it jazz to me. Some of the songs I didn’t really change one note of the melody, but in order for me to get inside of her phrasing and then make it my own.

What I was referring to mostly was the fact that I heard a lot of jazz in what she was doing. 

That is so true, especially on her first two albums. There’s like upright bass on there, you know, like Appletree. Maybe it sounds like she’s performing with the jazz trio, which is so cool.

You’re a huge fan of Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane’s collaboration. I think you’ve said that’s the best male jazz vocalist album. Hartman did an interview with the New York Times in 1982, and he said, “The more you sing a song, you are apt to change it. It reflects the moods that you’re in.” Do you share that opinion about the many songs that you’ve recorded, whether they’re your own or somebody else’s? 

Jazz is Shakespeare. This is the classical repertoire. As you mature, hopefully, and deepen, hopefully, and go through some life experiences, then all of a sudden the words in the text become more relevant to you. Definitely when I first sang it, you know, this idea of being touched either physically or emotionally by this other person and kind of reminiscing about that moment, the times was much closer. But now that I’m 45, I can really think of a lot of different ways. For example, like a mentor who opened my world to jazz or to poetry or art kind of changes the feeling of it for me. Even though it’s ostensibly a romantic song, in my mind it’s turned into something else, which I hope comes across in the interpretation.

Should an artist have just a narrow range of interest and a way of expressing his or herself? Does it frustrate you that people seem to want you to be one thing because that’s easiest for them?

It has been frustrating in the past. I think I’ve sort of made peace and found my happy medium with how much I need to explore and how much we exist in service to people. That was a big shift in the pandemic for me. A lot of time to think about why I do it and when I would hopefully come back to jazz singing and performing would I do anything differently. The shift for me was I think I’ve artistically pushed the boundaries as far as I want to. Now my challenge is how creative can I be within sort of like the parameters that my fans enjoy because I definitely pushed it at some points past what my fans enjoy. For the hip hop kids who are like, why are you doing a duo with the jazz pianist? Or for the jazz purist you’re doing trap drums with autotune? There’s beautiful space in the middle, which I love. I think part of getting older is finding what you do best and figuring out how to explore that infinitely.

In an interview that you did in 2012 with the MinnPost you said, “If I could do jazz the way I wanted to, I would, but I just can’t. I can’t do it with the freedom I want or the audience development I want.” Along with your own perspective that you just expressed changing, has anything else changed for you in the 11 years since that comment that makes that less true today?

I think what’s changed is seeing people who have done both and in talking to some of them. Hearing the frustration of some people [who] feel like they’re in golden handcuffs and they can’t write songs or do things or produce that they want to. Then other people who spent their whole career just throwing paint against the wall but now want to sort of hit this commercial high. They’re not able to because they’re all over the map. Being at peace with your choice, no matter what the result is, that’s the challenge.

McCoy Tyner gave you great advice to just be yourself when you were touring with him. Knowing how much Coltrane means to you and how much McCoy Tyner means to you, which was more important, the advice or the man who was giving it to you?

The advice coming from him had a lot more weight. The thing about McCoy, which I found with a lot of living legends across genres, is that they are never looking backwards. McCoy was never telling people how to play. He was always positive. He was always uplifting. He really was in service to the music, to the audience and to his musicians. Never met another musician who was more generous with compliments or energy on stage. 

If you could go back in time to when you were in an a-cappella group called Cerulean and give yourself advice that you think your 16-year-old self really needed to hear to help him navigate his way through the life and career that you’ve had, what would that be?

I can’t believe that you found out about Cerulean, but I love it. I think I would just tell him that everything you believe about music and yourself right now is absolutely true. No matter what comes and goes, you don’t have to worry about anything. The cliché thing is true. The highs and the lows can knock you down. I remember when I was doing Letterman and Conan O’Brien, that was a bit too overwhelming for me. I wasn’t really ready for it. The downs, I haven’t sung in two years because of COVID. I wasn’t ready for that either. In both of those times I definitely did tap into how I felt about music back then because sometimes just putting on your favorite album and remembering this is why I do it is the most important thing.

To see the full interview with José James, please go here.

All photos by Janette Beckman/Courtesy Rainbow Blonde Records

The post José James and The Three Bs appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Legendary jazz saxophonist John Coltrane only ever recorded with one vocalist: baritone Johnny Hartman. Their 1963 album, simply titled John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, is considered an essential jazz album. Only six songs are on the album which runs just over 30 minutes. Nonetheless, it is a classic. On June 15th, saxophonist Ted Nash is going to celebrate that album in a show at Chelsea Table + Stage in New York.

Nash is an innovative musician who composes much of the work he plays. He’s a member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. That ensemble has recorded and performed Nash’s work. He’s a two-time Grammy Award winner and his most recent album was last year’s Transformation: Personal Stories of Change, Acceptance and Evolution.

Joining Nash for this show is baritone Tyreek McDole with bassist Ben Allison, Isaiah J. Thompson on piano and drummer Matt Wilson. Last December I spoke with Nash about the significance of this album and his approach to performing it live. The show was scheduled for early in 2022, but was postponed. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity.

John Coltrane is quoted as having said, “I’ve found you’ve got to look back at the old things and see them in a new light.” What will be your approach to looking back on this classic collaboration between John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman?

Well, that’s a good question. I love the recording and I’ve listened to parts of it so many times over the years; as a jazz musician and someone who is it improviser, because that’s largely what makes jazz so special. We’re always looking for a way to put our stamp on something. We tend not to want to do it like the original because what’s the point? These artists were masters and geniuses. For us to say, “Well, I can do what they did” it kind of misses the point. We love the music so much so we tend to want to play them at some point during our life.

I think this record, which it’s all standards, what makes it so incredibly unique are the two artists, of course, Johnny Hartman and Coltrane, and their incredible commitment to melody and the way they phrased the melodies and with such expression. My goal to do this is not try to figure out a complete different way to do it. My feeling is to try to embrace it for what it is – almost a recreation of it. People now are more modern and play differently. But to find ways to respect this original project by presenting it close to what it is, that’s what I want to do. I want to embrace it.

What do you think was so special about this collaboration that these two men had at this given moment in time? 

I think both the artists featured here were really at the height of their of their expression. Coltrane, of course, went on to continue to develop as a composer and as an improviser in different directions from this. But I think that it was magical. You can’t really explain things that are magical. They just happen. I read somewhere that there was talk of Mel Torme being the collaborator with Coltrane and Coltrane, said, “No, there’s this guy, Johnny Hartman, who is really singing great for me.” It’s like two great artists that come together and it just created its own thing. I don’t think even if they had gotten together later that they could have recreated the feeling and the spirituality behind the sound of this of this recording.

Do you think Hartman is overlooked as an artist? 

I think he is. I can’t tell you why it is that we know other artists more like, let’s say, Tony Bennett or or Frank Sinatra. Why do you know Clifford Brown more than Booker Little? It could be something personal, it could be something about choices that they made. I have no idea. I do know that he’s got an incredibly deep and rich beautiful voice that makes you feel good.

The album contains what my favorite song of all time, which is Billy Strayhorn’s Lush Life. I had the privilege of talking to Betty LaVette. She told me that she could spend her whole life performing that song and never feel like she got it right. Now you’re working with someone who is closer in age to Billy Strayhorn, who was 16 when he wrote the song. What are your hopes are for what your collaboration with Tyreek McDole will be and what you as somebody who’s further down the line in your career and he, who’s more a newbie in his career, are going to bring to this challenging, beautiful song? 

It’s probably one of the greatest songs ever written. I just have to say that. It’s humbling that it was written by somebody so young and so attuned to social and human characteristics and qualities to be able to talk like that in a song. It’s always a reminder that there’s depth in people at any age.

Getting off your question a little bit, but it’s interesting that the words tend to fall second place to the melody and harmony for a lot of horn players, myself included. I always tell people they should learn the song and the lyrics because it’ll give you some insight into what the song is about and maybe you’ll play it differently as a result. I’ve heard, of course, the lyrics to Lush Life. I’ve read and heard and listened to and thought about it a lot, but a lot of these songs I haven’t. This is a learning experience for me at my age. I’m hoping that with Tyreek will find that place inside of himself, even as a youngster, to bring something of humanity to these songs.

You’ve gotten so much attention for your own compositions, why this project now?

Coltrane continues to be an incredible inspiration and an influence on people. When you’re younger you’re trying to figure out ways to copy his style and copy his notes, copy his sort of expression. And then at a certain point you’re like, I can’t do this anymore. I have to try to find my voice. So you run away from Coltrane. You spend your life running away from Coltrane, right? Then here comes a project where I have license now to play something similar to Coltrane. That’s part of what I’m looking forward to on this gig is to kind of try to find Coltrane, but not to the notes that we do when we’re younger. In this case I want to try to find the spirituality behind Coltrane’s playing and bring it to this gig. In other words, even if I’m not kind of mocking or copying him, I want to copy the feeling that he had back at this time because that’s what’s truly sticks out.

All images of Ted Nash Courtesy Chelsea Table + Stage

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