Search - Bob James :: One

AHEAD OF HIS TIME

lulu-c56 | BRONX, NEW YORK United States | 04/08/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I HAVE BEEN A FAN OF HIS SINCE I HEARD THIS CD WHICH WAS A VINYL RECORD ALBUM WHEN IT WAS FIRST RELEASED IN 1974.HIS MIX OF JAZZ AND ORCHESTRA MUSIC WAS MIND BLOWING AND TIMELESS.MUST HAVE IN ANY JAZZ COLLECTION.HIS TWO CD IS AS GOOD"

Sounds great but there's a problem

J. McKeon | Williston Park, NY USA | 01/31/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"As far as the sound of this remastered CD is concerned, I have no complaints. No matter how many times I listen to ONE, it still sounds wonderful to me. I also have a vinyl copy of this album. Now some other people who have this album on vinyl might remember that the original vinyl issue of Bob James' ONE had liner notes. Those liner notes were very informative and should have been reproduced for this remastered CD. Why weren't they? Does anybody else out there have a problem with this? Anyway, I have to give this album one less star than I normally would for reasons that have nothing to do with the music itself. I can only echo the sentiments of other reviewers that have already stated how wonderful this music is."

Shadows Of A New Beginning

Andre S. Grindle | Brewer Maine | 06/26/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Bob James had already had records out (in a standard acoustic jazz format) many years before this came out but for all intents and purposes this is the beginning of the Bob James solo career most people will remember. James had a nice little nitche for himself producing and arranging albums during the early 70's on CTI with everyone from Freddie Hubbard to Grover Washington Jr and it only seemed a matter of time before he branched out and began making records of his own. In fact many of these people among them Grover himself,Idris Mohammad and Thad Jones all return the favor by being happily active participants on this album. This album has some of the hallmarks of James' sound of this era such as strong string arrangements and his understated way on the fender rhodes. On the other hand no one is going to mistaken this album for Lucky Seven for example. At this particular point in his career Bob James was operating during the earlier years of the 70's jazz-funk era and therefore was making music that was a lot more eclectic and broad in scope in terms of arrangements than one might normally associate with him. This would gradually diminish as the decade wore on but when this and his next few albums came out in the mid 70's would embrace that style to a pretty big extent. "Valley Of The Shadows" gets the album off to a great start with a 9 minute song called "Valley Of The Shadows"-a very discordant,minor chorded and somewhat avante garde type of groove where Bob's gift for traditional melody doesn't show up until the conclusion of the songs. "In The Garden" is a traditional arrangement that has a unique sounding mixture of jazz-funk fusion with a country slide guitar sound. Two more originals in "Soulero","Nautilus" and a version of "Feel Like Making Love" are getting a little more into standard Bob James style and even these songs have longer improvisational solos than one might expect. Another major highlite is of course "Night On Bald Mountain" which transforms the Moussorgsky classic into this funky groove with some really deep beats,similar in tone but somewhat more dramatic than what Deodato had famously done to the "Theme From 2001". Taken as a whole I rank this album in the same general arena as Head Hunters or Bitches Brew in terms of it's place in innovating a certain variety of jazz-funk and it's pretty likely this album is somewhat overlooked,as are many such recordings in the same arena."