For All We Know

ホセ・ジェイムスのボーカルとピアノのみのアルバム。ホセ・ジェイムス独特で甘く渋いボーカルをたっぷりと堪能出来ます。余分な音も少ない分、ホセ・ジェイムスの実力もよくわかります。流行の音から外れた今回のアルバムは好き嫌いが分かれるかもしれませんが、個人的にはこちらの方面で頑張ってほしい。

This is simply one of the best jazz vocal recordings of the last ten years. A record for listeners who enjoy slow ballads, for those that have not lost their sensibility and actually enjoy emotion and romance. Jose James reminds me of Johnny Hartman and Mark Murphy, however, he has his own style： a spare, dark, pitch-perfect voice and a great feeling for the lyrics. His voice can be a dark baritone one second, then a tenor the next phrase. His facility to navigate a song’s tonal ups and downs remind me of Sarah Vaughan. It also seems that he has listened to many Carmen McRae and Billie Holiday recordings, he ”gets” the lyrics. Jeff Neve plays a surprising piano full of passion for the melody and harmony of the song list. He alternates between solo and backing, goes back and forth between traditional and modern harmonics, soft and loud dynamics. There are no empty flourishes or ”cocktail piano” here, Jeff is clearly playing from the heart and extracting as much beauty as he can from each song. This is a work of love. It is not often that we learn about a new outstanding singer or a new (at least to me) great pianist. To have both together, on a CD produced by Impulse!, is a blessing. This is going to become a classic album. 5 stars vocals, piano and recording!