Its José’s 45th birthday today and he’s giving us a new album as a present. José’s 7-track tribute to the great Erykah Badu just came out today on his own Rainbow Blonde label and features BIGYUKI on piano, keys, and synths, Ben Williams on bass, Jharis Yokley on drums, Ebban Dorsey on alto sax, and…
Growing up with the music of Bill Withers, I always thought that “Lean On Me” was the least attractive. Which of course still means that it’s an amazingly great piece of music, coming from the mind of this brilliant artist. And so it was this particular song last night at Neukölln’s Heimathafen where José James…
José James has gone back to “contemporary R&B” on his new, appropriately titled album “Love In A Time Of Madness”. He says that “there’s a resurgence of something I haven’t seen since the ’90s or ’00s, when hip-hop, R&B, and pop were converging in really thrilling ways through folks like Tribe, Erykah Badu, or D’Angelo. There’s…
It was the final night of this year’s highly entertaining XJAZZ Festival – the area in Friedrichshain was run over by people visiting the Village Market, a weekly streetfood festival catering to all kinds of foodies, food junkies, and everyone else in between. But on the night before, artistic director Sebastian Studnitzky played his latest…
One of the songs José James performed last night during his brief showcase concert at Berlin’s Apple store on Kurfürstendamm was the moving ballad “Tenderly”. It is one of nine tracks from the fine and fitting tribute to the singer he discovered at a very early age in life. Earlier that day, we talked about…
I went to Cologne today which was my homeland in the late 80s/early 90s. And “Homeland” was the reason for my trip. It’s the title of the new album by Moroccan singer Hindi Zarah, which will be released on April 10th. It’s an amazing collection of songs and the album will be reviewed on these pages…