Biography
Bruce James is a soul man, no doubt about. Listen to him and his music
and you’ll hear it: the sounds of the South, the dance and the church,
the R&B juke joint and the Apollo Theater, the jazz that was born in the
Crescent City, and the soul music that came from Muscle Shoals, Memphis
and Detroit the Motor City to enthrall the world. It’s in his voice, in
his inimitable touch on the keyboards, and in the songs he writes as
well as those from the R&B, jazz and pop canon that he makes all his own.
Just a listen to his new album, Yours, Mine & The Truth, reveals an
artist steeped in the best of the Black popular music tradition who is
indeed the real deal. It’s the sound of Otis Redding and Tom Waits
having coffee together and smoking cigarettes in New Orleans at four
o’clock in the morning, or a summit-meeting jam session between Ray
Charles and Miles Davis on the stage of the legendary Birdland nightclub
just off of Swing Street in Manhattan.
As the Austin Chronicle notes, James is “a piano man that can swing and
croon like Dr. John, or growl and stomp like Tom Waits.” Similarly,
Relix magazine observes how “Bruce James has a deeply soulful set of
lungs; at times [he] echoes Springsteen, Joe Cocker and Van Morrison
while remaining true to himself.”
How does Bruce James come by his mastery of R&B, soul and jazz with such
authenticity? “Growing up, I had a white Dad and a Black dad,” he
explains. His Caucasian biological father was a preacher in a small
non-denominational multiethnic church in Houston, Texas. His Black
co-father, Jerry Martin, was his actual father’s best friend — the two
men also shared the exact same birthday — and the bandleader of the
church’s musical group as well as one hell of a singer.
“He sang like Sam Cooke,” recalls James. “The man had an incredible
voice and just loved to sing. That dude taught me how to sing and didn’t
even know he was teaching me how to sing.”
Music was also in James’s genetics. His grandfather was a talented
boogie-woogie pianist, and his great-grandmother was also a pianist who
was the first woman admitted to New York’s prestigious Julliard School
of Music.
James started on the first of many instruments he plays, the trumpet, at
11 years old. He began playing the horn in his middle school band
primarily because his family happened to own one. At church, “I’d play
my little ‘Amazing Grace’ solos,” he says. “Then one Sunday the drummer
didn’t show up, so Jerry handed me some drumsticks and said, you’ve got
rhythm, play the drums. For three or four months I was so pissed. I was
like, hey, I’m a trumpet player, not a drummer. But then I fell in love
with the drums and they couldn’t get me off the kit.
“Then this cat came in to church and showed me a C chord on the piano,
and I took off from there.” In addition to what became his primary
instrument, James also taught himself guitar and bass. “I’d lock myself
in a dark closet and practice my changes so I wouldn’t be able to see
the fretboard,” he explains.
The notion of making music his career if not his life soon took hold,
abetted by another member of the church band, vibes and trumpet player
J.J. Hensley. “He was my Black uncle,” says James. “He played in a
Houston fusion band called The Light Men. His roommate in college was
Ronnie Laws and his band director there was Joe Sample’s brother. He’d
played gigs with Art Blakey and Miles Davis. We’d get together and he’d
tell me about the music business.”
James studied music at Houston’s High School for the Performing & Visual
Arts and played in the school’s jazz band. (where his classmates
included fellow pianist and Blue Note recording artist Jason Moran and
Eddie Weiner). But his true tutelage came in a funk/jazz dance band he
formed with musical pals from his neighborhood called Boogie Nights.
By the end of James’s high school years, the group was packing fans into
Fitzgerald’s nightclub in Houston. On graduation, he and his bandmates
relocated to Denton, Texas, where James studied music for two years. “I
met some amazing musicians and learned more there from not going to
class,” he recalls.
“It’s retarded because I failed piano at University of North Texas twice
because of my form,” observes James. “I was like, look man, I can play
all this shit better than anyone in this class. But the teacher was
like, yeah, but you’re not playing it the proper way.”
James left college and he and the band — which had changed its name to
Tunji — migrated to Austin. Starting out with gigs at a small
coffeehouse, the group quickly gathered a pool of avid and devoted fans
with its sound that mixed the catchy, punchy and danceable funk and soul
of Earth, Wind & Fire with the fusion instrumental flights of Bitches
Brew-era Miles Davis.
Tunji was soon playing 250 shows a year on tour at clubs and festivals
from Seattle to New Orleans and packing enthusiastic crowds into such
Austin nightspots as The Mercury Lounge and Flamingo Cantina back home.
They recorded one self-released album, Last Night’s Wine, that sold
handsomely at shows, and shared stages with Jimmy Smith, Bernie Worrell,
Burning Spear, Dr. John, The Last Poets, Hugh Masakela, Soullive, Guru,
and Jurassic 5. But after five years on the road — and frustrated by
lack of media attention and record company interest while all the while
audiences in a slew of markets adored the band — James decided to strike
out on his own.
He has since honed his sound and songwriting over such releases as his
Wayside EP and Junkyard Soul album, studied studio recording, and kept
his entertainer’s chops sharp five nights a week as the resident singer
and pianist at Austin’s Three Forks steakhouse, where he gives his
soulful treatment to songs by everyone from Paul Simon to The Flaming
Lips and enthralls with his own material. On other nights James can be
heard getting deep down into his groove and tearing it up at Austin
clubs leading his Bruce James Soultet.
Within his touch, agility and imaginative playing one hears such
inspirations as Ramsey Lewis, Ray Charles, Ahmad Jamal and Horace
Silver. And James’s deep from the heart and soul vocals also echo
Charles as well as Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye and a bit of Sam Cooke.
It’s authentic R&B, soul and jazz that comes from the best places and is
then taken by James to his own new artistic heights.
With the current soul revival kicking into high gear, Bruce James is not
only a man for the moment but an artist whose natural feel and abilities
mark him as a musical talent for all time. For as said at the outset,
he’s a soul man indeed, and it takes but a listen to know you’re in the
presence of the real deal.
Instrumentation
Bruce James -- Keys and Vocals
Tim Spivey -- Bass
Chris Trafton -- Drums
David Jimenez -- Guitar
Fumi Sagawara -- Guitar
Dave Carrol -- Percussion
Discography
"The Wayside Drive Sessions"
"Junkyard Soul"
"Yours, Mine, and the Truth"
Links
| http://myspace.com/brucejames |
| myspace |
| Reverbnation |
| CDFreedom/Nimbit |