Gilles Peterson, for those of you who are familiar with the British music maven, has been running Brownswood Recordings for just a few years now. We first were hipped to the upstart from the cross-pond vapors we caught from flagship artist, Ben Westbeech:

So the video has its corny moments, but don’t you have a suddenly brighter view of the world as Westbeech’s boyish and uplifting vocals hit you?  And that drum programming??  C’mon!  He may be a limey, but dude’s clearly melding some classical abilities with some self taught rawness… yet we digress.  This post is about Jose James.  The whole point is, when Giles Peterson signs someone, we listen and so should you.

James just dropped his debut release, The Dreamer, breathing some new life into Jazz.  Reading around, a lot of people are pairing his voice with Gil Scott Heron.  Not gonna argue with that, and certainly not gonna complain either.  Shit, we should find a few more Gil Scotts out there!

So the best and most relevant part of JJ to our faithful BSC readers you ask?  He’s from non other than BK!!  It’s doubtful he’s actually a Bushwick representative since he references riding the A Train as a youngin’, but that’s ok.  We’ll still give props where props are due.

OH!! And how could we almost forget!  JJ will be playing on the 29th at Nublu on Ave C in Manhattan.  Check Giant Step for ticketing and event info

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