Up for the Challenge: A Conversation with Bob James (Part Two)

We ended the first part of our conversation (available here) with Bob James by discussing artists who have sampled his work over the years. Part two begins by examining the influence hip hop has had on his own music. We then continue a tour through the history of the compositions on his forthcoming trio album, Feel Like Making LIVE! (evosound/Evolution Music, 2022), from playing “Misty” with Sarah Vaughan to James’ own “Angela,” also known as the theme song to the tv show Taxi. We also discuss what he likes most about his current trio, cover his work recontextualizing classical pieces, and examine his recordings with Paul Simon, Hubert Laws, and Hank Crawford.

PostGenre: Your influence on hip hop is heavily documented. But what about the reverse? Has hip hop influenced your music much? “Submarine” uses a drum kit, but the percussion line sounds looped or sampled.

Bob James: That is a great question and also a good example. “Submarine” has been my first, and so far only, direct attempt to try to sample my own recordings. I was very aware that “Nautilus” had been sampled so many times by different hip-hop artists and wanted to see what I could do with that. Because I own the copyrights to my own version of “Nautilus”, I didn’t have to ask anyone else’s permission to do so and could just sample it. So, I created a new piece, which ended up becoming “Submarine,” with the idea of using samples from “Nautilus” to try to bring that technique of sampling into my world.

PG: Another song on the new album is a cover of “Misty.” When you play old standards like that song, does it make you reflect on when you were playing behind Sarah Vaughan?

BJ: Absolutely. And that was a major reason behind choosing “Misty” to be part of Feel Like Making LIVE!. Playing that song brings back those memories. I must have played “Misty” hundreds of times when I played for Sarah Vaughan.

And the presence of these songs on the album from earlier in my career comes from working with Ashley Whitfield, the president of the Evolution Music label, with whom I had recorded Espresso. After Espresso came out, Ashley wanted video content of the songs on the album and approached me with the idea of doing a live video performance. Having the record company support that and have enough faith in me and the music to put it in the form of a DVD was both flattering and a big honor.

While we were recording songs from Espresso, Ashley also challenged me to do several other songs from my career. That’s how I ended up having pieces that recall memories from earlier stages in my life, whether playing with Sarah Vaughan or the Miles Davis tune “Nardis” which I first recorded on Bold Conceptions (Mercury, 1963). But Ashley also wanted us to include some more quirky choices like the version of “Rocket Man” that is on the album. What you end up with on Feel Like Making Live! is our attempt to get a feeling of what repertoire I might include if I was doing a club date or some live performance.

PG: And, of course, Elton John’s “Rocket Man” is far from the first time you have approached pop music. Among other things, you even did the string and woodwind arrangements for Paul Simon on “Still Crazy After All These Years.” Have you ever seen a disconnect between pop music and jazz?

BJ: No. I mean, using Paul Simon as an example, I think he would, and did, use elements from a wide variety of music depending on what he was trying to accomplish with his lyrics. On my arrangement of “Still Crazy After All These Years,” I think he deliberately wanted to bring in an arranger that had a different vocabulary; a different way of adding color or texture to his song. And, of course, you also have Michael Brecker playing a beautiful solo in the middle of that piece. A pop saxophonist would not have been able to bring that kind of beauty to something that was not really a jazz song. Anytime I was able to do anything like that, to play that kind of music, it was a wonderful opportunity to learn from great artists like Paul Simon.

PG: “Downtown” is another song that was a pop hit decades ago. But on Feel Like Making Live! that song sort of morphs into a classical piece. There have been many times in your career where you have done the reverse and recontextualized classical pieces. Turning “Pachelbel’s Canon” into a blues tune, “In the Garden” on One is a good example. What do you like most about recontextualizing classical pieces?

BJ: Many things I do just come from my tastes in music. Classical music is something I’ve listened to back to my college days. I had a conventional music education that was heavily based on classical music. Creed Taylor also had a philosophy of giving jazz musicians the assignment or challenge of doing jazz versions of familiar classical themes. Throughout Creed Taylor’s productions, he had always recommended various classical music and advocated putting it in the hands of jazz musicians to give the compositions a different approach.

PG: One of those being Hubert Laws’ The Rite of Spring (CTI, 1971), on which you had also worked.

BJ: Exactly. Hubert is a musician I have always loved. I always enjoy any time I have the opportunity to play with someone who has both a classical and jazz background and is equally at home in both. Hubert brings the discipline, technique, tone, and ideas of both. And he challenged me to collaborate with him. To this day, he remains an amazing and brilliant player. If I recall correctly, I was able to play on The Rite of Spring but did not do much with the arrangements. I did so many different things with Hubert at the time. Some as a player, and others as an arranger or composer, or both. 

But in terms of Creed’s calls to incorporate classical music, I enjoyed the challenge. He would suggest classical pieces and then we would go off on the idea. And so you end up with things like “Pachelbel’s Canon” becoming “In the Garden” on One or Bizet’s “Farandole” on Two (CTI, 1975). While I might have come up with the idea to do it myself, it was really Creed Taylor’s vision and a part of the power of CTI’s sound that brought that into my music. I was able to utilize it after I left CTI and I still like doing it. I generally enjoy tackling the challenge of taking any well-known theme, whether a classical piece or pop standard and then reinterpreting it in the jazz vocabulary.

PG: What was it like working as an arranger on Hank Crawford’s Wildflower (Kudu, 1973)?

BJ: It is interesting that you would mention Hank. He was one of the most passionate musicians I have had the opportunity to work with. He and I came from very different worlds. His music is very blues-based, and he was an incredibly soulful player. My assignment was to put a kind of CTI atmosphere around his ideas and bring some almost classical type of orchestration into his music. It was a lot of fun to have that challenge of melding the two as his arranger.

PG: And, of course, there are your own compositions. You always seem to find the right hook to draw in listeners. It may be part of why you have been sampled so much. What is your compositional process?

BJ: That is still a mystery, even to me. I wish I had a good system that I could explain. But the things that have worked the best for me, or that have become successful, always seem to come about in unpredictable ways. They sort of just happen. That describes many things I’ve worked on, where they ended up having a life of their own and not at all what I anticipated. The only thing I can conclude from that, even now, is that if I have a process, it is just working regularly. It is having the discipline to come over to my studio every day and work, experiment, and try things. To not worry about what the result will be but instead concentrate on the process of making it. Sometimes your ideas work out, and other times, they don’t. It’s that mystery of whether something works that I still love. There’s no formula, at least that I’m aware of. I just love doing it.

PG: And probably your best-known composition is “Angela,” which was used as the theme song to the tv show Taxi. Do you remember how you came up with the melody for that song?

BJ: That’s another great example of how mysterious the music world has been for me. I never set out to write something specific for that series. One of the show’s producers had one of my albums – BJ4 (CTI, 1977) – in their collection. When they were trying to settle on a style for the show, the producer was listening to that album. He thought the music he heard fit the mood they were trying to establish for the show. So, he reached out to me to see if I would be interested in creating some new music similar to what I had done on BJ4. The original offer to make music for the show came about as a result.

I had told the producers at the time that I wasn’t doing music for TV. I wasn’t interested in writing in a sitcom sort of style, and if they wanted the music to be like an album of mine, I should approach the recording session the same way that I would if I had been recording an album for retail. With that in mind, I asked the producer if I could just go into the studio and record a variety of things without thinking specifically about the show. And, that is what I did in that session. I ended up submitting a piece that I thought might be appropriate for the setting. I was thinking about New York City and cab drivers and what might fit that environment.

But the producers ended up not choosing the piece I selected, so I composed a few different types of pieces to give them some options. I didn’t know at the time that they wanted to establish a specific mood that would fit footage they had already shot of a cab going over the Queensboro Bridge. Of course, that video ended up being the opening sequence for the show. And of the seven or eight different pieces I had written for this first recording session, they felt like the most mellow of them, “Angela” would best fit the video. I had written the song thinking it would be used as background music for a scene, not some theme. It surprised me that “Angela,” was the one they chose, but I was okay with it. 

And that’s how the piece became the main theme, almost like a fluke or accident. I had not, in any way, anticipated that the song would be the main theme for a series. And my good fortune was that the show went all over the world, taking my music to a place that it never would have gone otherwise.

PG: So, the experience with “Angela” was almost like “Nautilus” in the sense that you did not think much of the song when recorded, but it ended up taking off.

BJ: It’s a little bit awkward to admit that my successes are not based on something I felt that I did deliberately, but something more accidental. But it’s true. And that also makes me continue to enjoy the adventure of seeking something like that to happen again, in an accidental way. If I just do a lot of stuff and enjoy doing it, who knows where the music will end up. Maybe it’s sort of risky, but it’s also part of the excitement that keeps me stimulated and wanting more.

PG: One of your early performance experiences was providing music for tap dancers. Do you see a commonality between providing music for that art form and providing music for Taxi where it was used to support actors in their craft?

BJ: Yes, absolutely. I have significant respect for those who use music to support drama in movies, theater, or television. The two also support each other well. Music can contribute to dramatic changes in acting and, at the same time, music can come alive when people have something visual that they can look at, whether actors or dancers.

PG: What do you like most about this trio captured on Feel Like Making LIVE!?

BJ: I guess youth would be the short version of what I love about it. My drummer, Billy Kilson, and my bassist, Michael Palazzo, keep me feeling young because of the energy I need to try to keep up with them. At the same time, they have useful experience. I’ve worked with Billy since the late 90s and he’s worked with Dave Holland and others. As for Michael, he’s only in his 30s but does his homework. He provides a great foundation that I need and want in my music but also has enough virtuosity that when it comes time to take over the theme of the music, he’s constantly surprising me. I love it. 

In general, however, I love the trio instrumentation with bass and drums. I still get great pleasure out of being a piano player in that setting. I guess I probably knew even during my days in college that the trio setting was the most exciting thing for me because that was the setting we used at Notre Dame. But, at the same time, I don’t necessarily always love having the full responsibility of being the leader. I have provided a support role for some of the best artists over the years and value those experiences as well. To be honest, sometimes I would prefer to play for someone like David Sanborn or Grover Washington Jr. as the leader. Or I may prefer the setting of Fourplay, where my piano is just one part of its functions. And, some other times, I prefer functioning in a more behind-the-scenes or arranger type of role. I love that too.

The Bob James Trio’s Feel Like Making LIVE! will be available on January 28, 2022. It will be available on vinyl, SACD, MQA-CD, Blu-ray, and digital audio. It can be purchased through our Amazon Affiliate store.

More information on Bob James can be found on his website.