Bob James Trio @ The Dakota, January 21st, 2022

For six decades, jazz piano legend Bob James has captivated audiences with his ability to bridge classic and contemporary jazz in his recordings.  This is why his popularity and staying power, remains.  Friday night at The Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis, with James on grand and electric piano, Michael Palazzolo on upright bass, and drummer, James Adkins, the trio showed their musical prowess in spades.  Many of James' popular records that spanned the decade of the 1970s from 1974-'79, featuring large orchestras and lush arrangements with the rhythm section as well as strings and brass, and plenty of it.  At Friday's gig at The Dakota, the arrangements were such that it gave the trio room to serve the tunes in an entirely different, more intimate setting than what one would hear on the records, most of which during James' early career, featured numbers, from One, to Four, recorded in consecutive years between 1974 and '77.  

Palazzolo and Adkins provided a strong framework for James' piano arrangements and brought a new and different dimension to some of his most seminal work, compositions that dotted the setlist such as "Nautilus", "Mind Games", from his 1997 "Playin' Hooky" record, James' cover of Roberta Flack's "Feel Like Makin' Love", and the ever-popular encore of the set, James' theme "Angela" from the television show "Taxi".  Interspersed between these legendary chestnuts of James' catalog were newer, more contemporary numbers, that maintained the same vibe of a laid-back groove but with excellent musicianship from the trio, which James' compositions require.  It is music that may sound really chilled out, and it is, to be sure.  But the arrangements are indeed bang on the money and right in the old pocket.  They are common to the music that Bob James has composed, arranged and recorded in his entire career.  His trademark melds complexity with familiarity, where they are written in such a way to perk a listener's ear as a catchy melody, and to make diehard musicians say, "check this out!  This is cool!"  

This was also in evidence on "Mr. Magic", a James tune, that was made popular, by his contemporary in the "smooth jazz" lexicon, so-called, the late, great tenor sax man, Grover Washington Jr.  The newer tracks played by the band had a real vibe and of the lot, the most notable had to be the tune "Topside" released on James' 2018 "Espresso" record.  James even wondered aloud to the audience, about the popularity of his music among hip-hop and rap artists, who have many a time, sampled one of his tunes for their beats and the like, quipping "of all the artists you could choose to sample for your tunes, why me?"  Maybe it is that cool factor mentioned at the end of the above paragraph.  For more than six decades, Bob James has been putting his own twist on jazz and it is sure to please the ears of diehard fans and of new listeners alike.