Bob James Two

Bob James and Keiko Matsui's Altair & Vega is a solo piano album performed by a duo, and for the most part, that means what it sounds like, two jazz pianists seated together at one keyboard playing four-handed parts. On the James-composed title track (which refers to two stars that pass each other only once a year), previously recorded and released on the 2001 James album Dancing on the Water, Matsui takes the upper part of the piano and James the lower part in a piece that sounds more new age than jazz.

One of the first releases on the resurrected Okeh Records imprint, 2013's Quartette Humaine features pianist Bob James and saxophonist David Sanborn performing a set of mostly original songs that walk the line between funky contemporary jazz and more thoughtful post-bop. It’s also the first collaboration between the two giants of contemporary jazz since their 1986 Grammy Award-winning album Double Vision. However, rather than revisit that album's funk and smooth jazz leanings, here James and Sanborn summon the spirit of the legendary Dave Brubeck quartet featuring saxophonist Paul Desmond. While they don’t play any Brubeck songs, the album was recorded with Brubeck's adventurous, often challenging acoustic jazz spirit in mind.

Bob James' recordings have practically defined pop/jazz and crossover during the past few decades. Very influenced by pop and movie music, James has often featured R&B-ish soloists (most notably Grover Washington, Jr.) who add a jazz touch to what is essentially an instrumental pop set. He actually started out in music going in a much different direction. In 1962, James recorded a bop-ish trio set for Mercury, and three years later …

Botero might be the most significant album Bob James has made in quite some time. Jack Lee has a way of inspiring the pianist in a way that very few have outside of such guitarists as Eric Gale, Earl Klugh – who waxed three memorable albums with James, One on One (1979), Two of a Kind (1982) and Cool (1993) – and Lee Ritenour (heard on James’ Grand Piano Canyon and a co-founder of Fourplay on the quartet’s first three discs). Lee and James are accompanied here by American bassists Nathan East – like Bob James, a founding member of Fourplay – and Melvin Davis and Asian drummer Lewis Pragasam.