Modern Suit & Old Ties

José James' new album might be called No Beginning, No End, but after having worked on it for nearly two years, the 33-year-old vocalist is relieved the project actually does have a conclusion: “I feel ready now. I've worked on this album for so long. I'm ready to get out there,” he explains.

And “getting it out there” he is: on the day James speaks to us from his home in New York, his album's just gone to #1 on the R'n'B chart in Japan, he's fresh from visiting five European countries in one week, and has just performed on David Letterman. “That's like the biggest thing I've ever done,” says an excited James. “It's really great to be a New Yorker and to be able to do that kind of stuff in your city. There's this pride. It's the same as playing Radio City, or Carnegie Hall – they're things every New York musician wants to achieve.”

While James has become known for reshaping future directions in jazz through his mastery of diverse stylistic influences across several releases, No Beginning, No End marks James' first official outing on legendary contemporary jazz label Blue Note Recordings. It's a star-studded effort: conceptualised alongside Motown-era songwriter Leon Ware, featuring Robert Glasper on keys, Chris Dave on drums, and co-produced by Welsh bassist Pino Palladino (behind D'Angelo's Voodoo), who made the decision to come on board after working on a single song with James. “I didn't know that I'd end up on Blue Note when I started making this album, but I knew that if I made good music good things would happen,” reflects a thoughtful James. “Blue Note is such a great label, it's really full of music lovers and people who believe in their artists,” he enthuses. “Like, they've got Norah Jones working with Jack White and Danger Mouse – that's cool right?”

Blue Note, of course, also being the label responsible for pushing the pioneering, future-jazz of Robert Glasper – a role model and close friend of James'. “I mean, Robert thought about what he was going to do, he planned it, and it worked. And now he looks like a genius. But I'm sure when he was planning it, a lot of people would have been like 'wow, this is a different album, this is like a jazz pianist doing an R'n'B album, this is a totally different market, I don't know if we can sell this to jazz fans'. You know, sometimes you have to take a deep breath, and trust the artist. That's the model of the old Blue Note. That's what they did with Robert Glasper, that's what they did with me, and its working.”

Although the release far from cemented any expectations conservative jazz fans may have been harbouring for similar work: only the year previous to For All We Know, Jamea put out BlackMagic, a collaboration with Flying Lotus, wherein James brought his rich, elegant, baritone jazz vocals to the LA experimental beat producer's electronic samples and beats (“Steven just sent me a ton of beats and I wrote to them, it was exciting.”) James' connection with Flying Lotus is something he puts down to 'the Coltrane effect'. “Gilles Peterson heard me do Coltrane's Equinox and said he wanted me to do the Coltrane thing, and that's where [2008 debut] The Dreamer originated. Then I met Flying Lotus through that, which led to Blackmagic, which was kind of cool because he's Alice Coltrane's nephew and Alice's album was the last album Impulse! Records put out, who released Jef and I's album. I also recently toured with Coltrane's pianist. It's all connected!”

José James will be playing the following dates:

Thursday February 21 - Perth Festival, Chevron Festival Gardens, Perth WA

No Beginning, No End is out now.