Bob James - Two (1975 Japanese CTI Vinyl LP Gatefold)

Bob James - Two | Vinyl LP Gatefold - 1975 Japanese CTI Records (GP-3010, King Record Co. Ltd)

• Home to "Take Me to the Mardi Gras," one of the foundational breakbeats in all of hip-hop, the bell-and-drum pattern in its opening measures sampled by Run-DMC ("Peter Piper"), LL Cool J ("Rock the Bells"), the Beastie Boys ("Hold It Now, Hit It"), Missy Elliott ("Work It") and dozens more, making this one of the most sampled jazz records ever made.
• A lavish CTI production with a large orchestra, Bob James arranging and conducting from the keyboard, with Eric Gale on guitar, Hubert Laws on flute, Steve Gadd and Idris-adjacent session drummers, Randy Brecker and Lew Soloff in the brass, and a full string section, recorded at Van Gelder Studio in late 1974 and early 1975.
• 1975 Japanese pressing in gatefold sleeve on CTI, manufactured by King Record Co. Ltd, produced by Creed Taylor, engineered by Rudy Van Gelder.

Bob James was CTI's in-house arranger, the man Creed Taylor trusted to write charts for the label's biggest sessions, and his own run of solo albums for the label (One, Two, Three, BJ4) turned out to be some of the most consequential records in the history of sampling. Two opens with "Take Me to the Mardi Gras," an instrumental cover of a Paul Simon song from There Goes Rhymin' Simon. James rebuilds it around a montuno bell pattern and a drum groove, and those first four measures became one of hip-hop's fundamental breakbeats. When Run-DMC opened Raising Hell with "Peter Piper" in 1986, they built it on this break, and the bells have been synonymous with anthemic 1980s hip-hop ever since. WhoSampled counts more than 40 hip-hop recordings built on the track. There is folklore around it: Biz Markie claimed to own a rare bell-less version, and debate persists about whether Tommy Cash can be heard in the opening bars. None of that was in anyone's mind in 1975. James was making a jazz-funk record, and a very good one.

Beyond the famous opener, Two is a rich, orchestrally ambitious album. "I Feel a Song (In My Heart)," the Gladys Knight song, gets a full-band treatment with vocals. "The Golden Apple," a James original, stretches past seven minutes. "Farandole" adapts Georges Bizet's L'Arlésienne Suite No. 2, one of James's signature moves of running classical material through a jazz-funk arrangement, with Hubert Laws on electric flute. "You're As Right As Rain" is a Thom Bell and Linda Creed song from the Philadelphia soul songbook. "Dream Journey" closes the album. The playing throughout is immaculate, the arrangements dense and detailed, and the CTI production values (Van Gelder engineering, a large orchestra, Creed Taylor's polish) give the whole thing a sheen that was the label's trademark. The album reached number two on the Billboard jazz chart. James went on to co-found Fourplay and write the theme to the television show Taxi ("Angela"), but his CTI albums remain his most enduring legacy, endlessly mined by producers for decades.

This is the 1975 Japanese pressing on CTI GP-3010, manufactured by King Record Co. Ltd, in a gatefold sleeve.