Book José James for colleges, corporate events, festivals, performing arts centers & private shows. Contact Degy Entertainment for booking info.
José James is a Minneapolis-born vocalist, composer and guitarist whose work sits where jazz meets hip hop, soul and neo soul. His debut, The Dreamer, arrived in 2008 on Gilles Peterson's Brownswood Recordings. Two years later, For All We Know took both the Edison Award and the Académie du Jazz Grand Prix for Best Vocal Jazz Album. No Beginning No End followed in 2013, and his catalog runs on through Blue Note Records, Verve and Rainbow Blonde Records.
The training is audible. James studied at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York, and he brings a baritone to material that most singers in his lane would not attempt. Of Irish and Panamanian descent, he writes and arranges his own work and plays guitar behind it.
That range travels well. He has performed with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and his stages have included the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., the Hollywood Bowl and Billboard Live Tokyo. It makes him a versatile booking for performing arts centers and festival lineups, college and corporate audiences, and private events.
