The Song of the Day is:
Bob James – “Take Me to the Mardi Gras”
From the album Two (1975)
Is it weird that I am having a Bob James moment? I can’t think of another musician who is so funky and yet almost cringe-worry smooth at the same time. Is his music cool or lame? I’m not certain how he can walk the tightrope so effortlessly without falling to either side. Bob James has had a long career, spanning nearly sixty years (he’s still performing at age 81), and he’s played many styles of jazz, but for today’s purposes, I’m focusing on his mid-seventies reboot. He began playing acoustic piano, had was discovered and had his recording career kicked off by Quincy Jones, and would spend much of the next decade as a journeyman (as opposed to bandleader), most notably he was an accompanist for Sarah Vaughan. It’s likely that his time playing in the bands of Milt Jackson, Grover Washington, Jr. and Maynard Ferguson is where he developed his sound. Eschewing his earlier albums, his first fusion solo album was named One, and it truly did mark a new beginning – one in which James traded the piano for the electric piano, most commonly a Fender Rhodes organ. While he did have a notable hit with his cover of Roberta Flack’s “Feel Like Making Love”, his most recognized song from this era (or any of his eras) was “Angela”, which would later become the theme to the television show Taxi. Perhaps more than any song, “Angela” exemplifies James’ funk/smooth jazz tightrope act. During this era, James seemed less interested in illustrating his virtuosity than he was in creating textures and atmosphere. His cover of Paul Simon’s “Take Me to the Mardi Gras”, retained a lot of Simon’s melody, but makes wild, unannounced stylistic shifts that keeps the listener guessing – but never sliding into a New Orleans-inspired groove that the title might imply (legendary jazz guitarist Eric Gale can be heard here as well). The twist on the Bob James legacy is that this Caucasian smooth jazz bandleader has been sampled by hip-hop artists repeatedly (according to WhoSampled, he’s been sampled 1,573 time by major artists, which earns him comparisons to the music of James Brown and George Clinton). The opening to his “Mardi Gras” features a breakbeat that has been sampled by N.W.A., Run-DMC, LL Cool J., The Beastie Boys, Missy Elliott and the recently departed Biz Markie, among many others. Later James would form the fusion group Fourplay, he recorded collaborative albums with guitarist Earl Klugh and saxophonist David Sanborn, and could be heard playing on records by pop artists such as Neil Diamond, Luther Vandross Kenny Loggins, and Frank Sinatra. Even if Bob James is “uncool”, he’s made being uncool very cool.
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