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NEW RELEASE: JOSÉ JAMES NO BEGINNING NO END OUT NOW

JOSÉ JAMES BLUE NOTE DEBUT NO BEGINNING NO END; ALBUM OUT NOW | iTunes

No Beginning No End is a seamless musical experience that moves between different styles with remarkable fluidity, bound together by James’ transcendent voice. Conceived, recorded and produced independently, the album is James’ most personal statement yet and boasts collaborators including noted producer/bassist Pino Palladino; pianist/composer Robert Glasper; R&B singer/songwriter/guitarist Emily King; international French-Moroccan singing star Hindi Zahra; and the Thelonious Monk Competition winner pianist Kris Bowers.

No Beginning No End sums up how I feel about music right now,” says James. “I don’t want to be confined to any particular style. I decided I didn’t want to be considered a jazz singer anymore and that was really freeing. Once I realized that jazz singing is just something that I do and it’s just a label, it freed me as an artist to just write without any boundaries.”

The Minneapolis-born, Brooklyn-based James is a musical omnivore whose career path has steadfastly followed its own rhyme and reason. He is an artist that resists being pigeonholed, equally at ease on stage with a jazz legend like McCoy Tyner as he is in the studio with electronica pioneer Flying Lotus. Interview Magazine recently named José one of their 13 Faces of 2013, declaring him “The New Jazz Man” and praising his efforts to reconnect hip hop with jazz.

Following his breakout national TV debut on Conan, José brought “Trouble” to the set of the Late Show with David Letterman. “Trouble” is the lead single from José’s stunning Blue Note debut No Beginning No End, which NPR Music premiered as part of their First Listen series.

The influential Los Angeles radio station KCRW has also posted José’s performance of “Trouble” from their Berkeley Street Sessions as a teaser for the full concert that they recorded at Apogee’s Berkeley Street Studio last month. The session will air January 24 on Morning Becomes Eclectic. The Los Angeles Times was at the taping and called it “one of L.A.’s best concerts of the year,” adding that No Beginning No End is “a palette-stretching career high-water mark for the singer-songwriter.”

The Times went on to call James a “genre hybridist who claims both b-boys and jazz purists in his fan base,” and raved that the show was “a powerful reminder of the power – artistic and spiritual – of music that is not canned, that is not rigidly programmed to merely re-create studio sounds… the elder statesman gravitas of his voice, coupled with his amiable ’round-the-way demeanor make him a winningly singular presence in contemporary American music. Not just singular, but magnetic.”

Following the release of No Beginning No End, José will kick off a short U.S. tour January 23 in New York City with an album release show at the Highline Ballroom. Other stops along the first leg will include Washington DC, Boston, Chicago and Minneapolis. After a month-long tour in Asia and Australia throughout February, James will be returning to the U.S. in March for a run of West Coast dates that includes San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco, and a Los Angeles show at The Del Monte Speakeasy on March 12.

Tracklisting:

1. IT’S ALL OVER YOUR BODY

2. SWORD + GUN feat. Hindi Zahra

3. TROUBLE

4. VANGUARD

5. COME TO MY DOOR

6. HEAVEN ON THE GROUND feat Emily King

7. DO YOU FEEL

8. MAKE IT RIGHT

9. BIRD OF SPACE

10. NO BEGINNING NO END

11. TOMORROW

No Beginning No End on iTunes

JOSÉ JAMES – 2013 TOUR DATES

Jan. 23 – Highline Ballroom – New York, NY

Jan. 24 – Howard Theatre – Washington DC

Jan. 26 – Scullers – Boston, MA

Jan. 29 – Cedar Cultural Center – Minneapolis, MN

Jan. 30 – Lincoln Hall – Chicago, IL

Feb. 10-Mar. 6 – Asia & Australia Tour

Mar. 8 – San Jose Jazz WinterFest – San Jose, CA

Mar. 9 – The New Parish – Oakland, CA

Mar. 10 – Brick & Mortar Music Hall – San Francisco, CA

Mar. 12 – The Del Monte Speakeasy – Los Angeles, CA

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