The Riverside Press-Enterprise
Capturing `1978'
Pasadena’s José James runs the feel of Prince and Marvin Gaye through a modern filter
Q AJosé James wasn’t listening to music back in 1978 — that’s the year he was born. Yet many of his favorite albums are from that year, and the soulful, hypnotic grooves on his new album, “1978,” recall songs by Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, Prince and others through a modern filter.
James, who lives in Pasadena, started out as a jazz singer but has diversified his styles throughout his career to include a blend of R&B, hip-hop, rock and funk. This album, the first he’s produced himself, explores the pan-african musical sound that was developing in the 1970s. It comes out today through Rainbow Blonde Records, which he founded with his wife, Talia Billig, who also helped write some of the songs.
James spoke recently by video about this most personal of projects. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How did this album come to be?
I pre-produced everything on Ableton here in my home. I wanted it to sound like J Dilla and Leon Ware produced the album for me.
AThe first seed planted was meeting Leon Ware — he wrote so
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much for Motown, but he also produced You were born in Minneapolis and wrote “I Want You” for and lived in New York. How do
Marvin Gaye, which is my favorite album you think living in Pasadena shaped of all time. We spent a beautiful the album’s vibe? day at his house in Marina del Rey.
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He had such a wealth of ideas and This is my first real L.A. album. gravitas. He had a huge photo of Marvin There’s so much space here — on the wall and one of him with I’m looking out my window right now
Berry Gordy too, and he just talked and I can see the mountain range. It’s about this beautiful connection that just totally different when you’re seeing
I didn’t really know between jazz and soaring birds and coyotes running
R&B, saying Marvin, Al Green, Sam across the street. But also there’s
Cooke, Bill Withers, all those guys this car culture out here and I pictured came from jazz in some way. somebody listening to this in
There was the Black church music their car, driving super slow in a late and there was jazz — that’s what you ’70s black Cadillac with a really nice could sing — and then they created system.
R&B, so that was a huge light bulb But my band is all New York musicians, moment for me. We never released so it’s the best of both coasts. the track we started writing but he We recorded everything near Woodstock
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gave me so much wisdom. Then I in New York, in one room, the Have you moved on to other needed to mature a bit to start telling way it was done back then, to 2-inch sounds now or are you still in my story and to get my songwriting tape. that ’70s mode? level and production to this level.
I want music that feels fun and accessible. I spent two years touring with my Bill Withers Project and watching people dance to “A Lovely
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Day.” I want my music to tap into that That’s where J Dilla came in — joy, but I also wanted to write songs a lot of his samples were weird that you could put under a microscope ’70s Japanese funk and disco and fusion and nerd out to the jazz harmonies, records, so I programmed a lot the way Quincy Jones did for of his drums in to give it that feeling
Michael Jackson. so the band could hear that this
Most of the writing was done here is not really a retro thing, but something in Pasadena where I live with Talia. that fills up today while referencing
Q
How did you find that balance between a 1978 sound and something that felt contemporary?
the ’70s stuff.
The years 1976-79 are my sweet spot, and 1978 had “C’est Chic,” Prince’s first album; Billy Joel’s “52nd Street”; and “Saturday Night Fever” (which had been released at the end of 1977). They were all happening at the time and I pulled different things from them. “Off the Wall” from 1979 was also part of the blueprint — and Marvin Gaye.
Marvin’s song “Come Live With Me, Angel” has this weird kind of trippy, sexy, drugged-out vibe for three minutes, and it’s kind of jazzy. That space is something I’m interested in getting into — where I put on an LP and I lose myself in the artist’s world and time stops, and hopefully I come out the other side a different person in some way or feeling different. So I wanted you to feel this is if you’re dancing, if you’re vibing, that it’s that ’70s thing.
I’m deep in that vibe. This album is part of a larger collection of work — the next one is going to be referencing kung fu films, which also came to a peak in the ’70s. I’m going to bring some of the kung fu and Blaxploitation soundtrack feel while keeping the disco funk thing happening. I feel like this is me — Prince and Michael Jackson was the music I first fell in love with, and so I feel like I’m going back to my roots.