Jazz Monthly.com Interview with Gordon James

Jazz Monthly: Well definitely, I use the words taste and style and I think those are perfect words to describe Gordon James.
Let’s talk about some of the cuts and people on this great CD “In Joy,” There are twelve cuts I believe…

GJ: Yes.

Jazz Monthly: And mostly originals. There are nine of them. But you picked three cover tunes… and I tell you… we talked about great judgment… they are not the typical cover songs and I’d like to point that out to everyone. One such refreshing Roberta Flack song, not “Where is the Love” but “Back Together Again.” Now what made you pick that one, man?

GJ: Well there’s a lot that goes into picking cover tunes. I actually… I’m glad you mentioned it, because I have a knack for it (laughter). Picking right covers. For one thing with trumpet you have to be careful with songs you pick because you’ve got to pick a melody that really works for the trumpet or the flugelhorn, otherwise it’s gonna sound really corny. That’s one factor that goes into picking a cover. And another one is like you said, you want to try and do something that hasn’t been done.

Jazz Monthly: Yes. And you certainly did. And I even liked the feel on “Back Together Again” because it was a little faster and it just locked in nicely. Sometimes If a person even thought about playing that… and it hasn’t been done, would tend to slow it down, but you gave it a nice driving tempo. Very nicely done.

The other cover tune, before we get to some of the originals was George Clinton’s “One Nation Under A Groove” a Funkadelic tune. And I tell you I think George Clinton would approve of your version because, to me you were true to the tune, definitely, but you made it your own, and you know Gordon, people still hold that album “One Nation Under A Groove” to be one of the greatest Funk Albums of all time, right?

GJ: Absolutely. I think so. I always wanted to cover that tune. I thought about doing it as far as two CD’s back and just never found the right person to do it with and it just never came together. But I’m so happy that I did do it. And that’s another one of those tunes that the melody kind of lends itself well, especially to the muted trumpet. I used open trumpet and muted trumpet, but the main melody I’m playing on the muted trumpet, and it just really works!

Jazz Monthly: Well I was very excited when I saw the listing of tunes on the CD, and I said, “Wow he’s gonna tackle this.” And it’s also somewhat ambitious of you too, when you think about it. You are covering a true Jazz Classic in the field.

GJ: Yes. It is kind of a gamble (Laughing)

Jazz Monthly: Well you nailed it if I can tell you that…

GJ: If you don’t nail it, you’re gonna get criticized for it. So it was one of those things where I just took a chance and… glad I did.

Jazz Monthly: The other thing too is… kind of the analogy I can think of with the album “One Nation Under A Groove.” That was to the late seventies to what “Kind Of Blue” was for Miles and the whole modal approach in 1959. And then twenty years later Funkadelic comes out and it’s a Dance Funk Classic too. And so when I put on your version of it man, you know I DID feel like dancing and that’s a compliment.

GJ: Yeah. Well thanks. We slowed it down a little bit from the original. It’s kind of tricky because obviously you’re in a genre and you want to stay somewhat true to the genre. We tamed it down a little bit, but like you said it’s still very danceable and very funky.

Jazz Monthly: Well, you aced it, so I think you can be proud of that. And the other cover tune is the Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis tune that came out in the eighties, “Sunshine” right?

GJ: Yes.

Jazz Monthly: Now James Lloyd produced that, didn’t he?

GJ: Yes, he did. And that was an interesting story. I was working with James in his studio and one day we trying to come up with another cover. We just started going through tunes on his Mp3. We were just clicking through tunes and when I heard that melody on that tune I said: “That’s It, It’s a really sweet melody for the flugelhorn and it will sound beautiful.”

Jazz Monthly: Well it is beautiful. And the other nice thing is that it has a really great feel to it. I think you proved, just on that song alone, and really the whole CD “ In Joy,” but with that tune alone“ Sunshine,” your performance of it and the production of it, Gordon, I think you proved really that great musicianship just doesn’t have to be over-blowing with cascading notes and over-production.

GJ: Yeah, absolutely.

Jazz Monthly: And of course I’m sure that was your aim and you succeeded.
Tell us about some of the musicians on “In Joy”?

GJ: Well on this particular CD I wanted to use some names in the Smooth Jazz genre, because I figured that will help with more notoriety. So I chose James Lloyd whose the keyboardist of PIECES OF A DREAM which was a group discovered by Grover Washington Jr. But James and I go back… he played on my second CD. I was doing the Asbury Park Jazz Festival and they were headlining that festival and I happened to go on right before they did. When I came off stage James was there and he said: “Wow, you play a mean horn.” So that’s how we connected. He ended up playing on the CD that I was working on at that time. And we stayed in contact through the years, so when I was getting ready to do “In Joy,” I contacted him about doing some playing and producing on it.

Also Bob Baldwin, who’s another established keyboardist and has many of his own CD’s out. I had met him also at a show that we were both on, so I got him involved. Chuck Loeb, who also played on my “After Hours” CD…