artist info

The career of Bob James is long, varied and continues to evolve at every turn. An American Grammy Award-winning jazz keyboardist, arranger, and record producer, James founded the band Fourplay and wrote the theme song for the hot TV show Taxi. Music from his first three albums has often been sampled and has contributed to the formation of hip hop.

Discovered by Quincy Jones at the Notre Dame Jazz Festival in 1963, James recorded his first solo album, Bold Conceptions, that year for Mercury Records. 58 albums and innumerable awards would follow through five decades. He honed his skills working with Creed Taylor, working on albums for artists like Hank Crawford, Grover Washington, Jr, among others. While with CTI, James found great popular success overseeing significant hits for Paul Simon, Neil Diamond, Maynard Ferguson, and Kenny Loggins.

2015 brought the release of James’ first live album, Live at the Milliken Auditorium, which was captured on a magical night in his hometown of Traverse City, Michigan. This same year also brought the first release from James and long time collaborator Nathan East, The New Cool, a masterful work of art that truly redefines the essence of cool. Still not finished, James and Fourplay came together for the release of the group’s 25th anniversary, with Silver, which was recorded old school at Sunset Sound Studios, where the group recorded their first album 25 years earlier.

While James is recognized as one of the progenitors of smooth jazz, his music has also had a profound effect on the history of hip hop, having been sampled often. Two of James’ songs – “Nautilus” from 1974′s One and “Take Me to the Mardi Gras” from 1975′s Two – are among the most sampled in hip hop history. According to whosampled.com, “Nautilus” and “Take Me to Mardi Gras” have been sampled in thirty-two and forty-three hip-hop recordings, respectively. The title track from his 1981 album Sign of the Times was sampled in De La Soul‘s “Keepin’ the Faith”, and Warren G‘s “Regulate”. His “Angela” was sampled in the track “Cab Fare” by Souls of Mischief. The track “El Verano” from the 1977 album “BJ4″ is used as a sample in the song “Blown Away” by the Cocoa Brovaz and also in the Masta Ace Track “NY Confidential”. N.W.A‘s “Alwayz into Somethin’” uses a sample of “Storm King” from the album Three. “Can’t Wait” by Redman features a sample of “Caribbean Nights” from the album Touchdown.