Jazz Hands

Not familiar with it ... will play it this weekend!

Thanks!!

Not familiar but I will also check it out.

The duo album with bass player Nathan East called “The New Cool” is a good one too. 

I own several LPs by Bob James and many more discs where he has contributed keyboard work.  I have always found his playing to be very laid-back and often left me wanting more excitement (for lack of a better term) in his playing.  Of his recordings I do own, my personal favourite would be "Heads".  Musicians include Eric Gale on guitar, David Sanborn, Grover Washington Jr. & Michael Brecker on sax and a host of others including Ralph MacDonald and Randy Brecker.  

The version of You Are So Beautiful takes the song to a completely new level IMHO.  Grover Washington's sax work is beautiful.  I will give the new disc a listen.

I am ambivalent about West Coast "easier" jazz. Some of it is really great -- Ritenour, Larry Carlton, for example. Other stuff from that region sometimes strikes me almost like Muzak, though that's too harsh. It's "jazz for bourgeois white people," in a way. Nothing wrong with liking what you like -- and not everything has to be Coltrane wailing away, etc. -- but for my tastes, I'd much prefer the "ease" of, say, a Kenny Barron than the schmaltz of a Bob James. But that's me.