Jose James signs to Blue Note Records; NO one pays attention | Did you ever hear his album with Jef Neve ‘For All We Know’ Album?

Jose James says, sings and does all the stuff I want my future husband to do. Yeah, I’ll just be honest.

With that said and the fanboy out my system, lets get to it.

This post was originally dedicated to Jose’s stunning musical achievement with the very talented Jef Neve (we’ll get to that in a second). However, I took a huge detour when a good friend posted up some awesome footage from over at Kevin Nottingham. While the video was more than enough to hold my attention, it was the mention of Jose being signed to Blue Note records that triggered the super nerd in me. I instantly went to googling around for some kind of press release or news about it, with nothing available to confirm the news. So I sat on it for the night, thinking of other ways to confirm.

The next day I was randomly on the facebooks, when I thought about checking his facebook page for more info. Plenty of nice new photos, but nothing on the signing to Blue Note. So I figure, why not just ask and see what happens. While I got a “like” status from Jose, that still wasn’t enough for me to geek out fully.

Until twitter. Praise you twitter. You get things done for me.

Lightly referencing being signed to something, I once again popped up and asked him if his being signed was true. He replies simply with a link to New York Times that made my day on several levels. Not only is the legendary Don Was now in charge of new talent (and other things) at Blue Note… one of the first things he did (on top of locking down Terrance Blanchard and Aaron Neville) was sign Jose James to a deal. FINALLY, the nerd in me was satisfied and feeling extra happygeeky. This is great, great news and has been a long time coming. I was already excited to hear new music from him, but this? This is a whole new level of excitement.

Geeked for Jose James and Blue Note as a whole, a label I have secretly admired my whole life. If you want to know how Jose got signed in the first place, read my nerdery on his For All We Know album along with links to all of his jazz side projects below.
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Now I’ve always hyped up Jose’s musical talents here. To date hes only done 2 LA shows (that I know of), and I’ve been at both without question or hesitation. I will admit that I have a bit of a bias. And I am a bit late to picking up this album. But I just bought the physical version For All We Know, and I am seriously trying to tell you there is very little to no occurrences or traces of failing in this album. At all. If it’s not Jose’s distinctively smooth and rich vocal tone on the tracks that make you fall in love, its going to be the ABSOLUTE GENIUS that is this Jef Neve dude and his flawless ability to clearly channel the right emotion into every note he plays on the piano. Jose’s extensive knowledge of jazz music helps when it comes to picking the right songs to cover. but regardless. It’s f*cking impressive, I am trying to tell you.

He released a few of the tracks to soundcloud for you to get an ideal of what he’s working with, and what hes working with is greatness. Listen to the album here, then go to his site to purchase the awesome. Classic weekend jazz relaxation music. LISTEN.

Here is the Billie Holiday EP I was telling you about earlier (watch video of the full show here:)…

Along with the Coltrane EP he released about a year ago.

If you like good music, you will love this.
Enjoy.