Colin James Little Big Band project turns 30 with Vancouver show

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Colin James and The Little Big Band 30th Anniversary

When: Feb. 2, 3, 8 p.m.

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Where: Commodore Ballroom, 868 Granville

Tickets/info: Ticketmaster.ca

In 1993, Vancouver musician Colin James was well-established with two albums featuring charting pop-rock singles such as Five Long Years and Just Came Back to his credit.

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Few expected the next record from the young guitarist to dish up 13 tracks of jump blues classics by such legends as Ike Turner and Roscoe Gordon backed by an All-Star unit featuring members of Roomful of Blues called the Little Big Band.

Colin James and the Little Big Band dropped a few years before the mid-1990s retro-swing jazz revival that made events like Vancouver’s Blue Lizard Cabaret nights at the Waldorf Hotel a social calendar essential and bands such as Squirrel Nut Zippers and Big Bad Voodoo Daddies pack gigs for a brief time.

But the album was a multiplatinum Canadian hit that the artist revisited with 1998’s II, 2006’s 3 and Colin James and the Little Big Band Christmas in 2007. This month, the group that once opened dates for the Rolling Stones, reunites for a series of 30th anniversary shows.

“I’m just about ready to start my 21st record down in Nashville with Colin Linden and I didn’t want this to confuse things because I’m not doing another Little Big Band album,” said James.

“But I ran into Roomful of Blues saxophonist Greg Piccolo at the Memphis Blues Awards last year, where I had my first nomination, and we started talking. That got me thinking about the passage of time, and that it wouldn’t be right to just let it go by without recognizing a project that topped out at around 300,000 sales in Canada and whatever else it did worldwide.”

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James cites two 1981 releases — Joe Jackson’s Jumpin’ Jive and Robert Plant’s the Honeydrippers: Volume One — as being influential to his vision for the Little Big Band. But he freely admits that the record label was gobsmacked by the sessions.

“Virgin America chose not to release it in the U.S. and have Canada handle distribution, and it landed with a terrible silence plus a bad review in NOW Magazine,” he said.

“Six months later, we were hearing about a grassroots movement where the album was getting spun at dance parties. About a year later, Brian Setzer Orchestra released its debut, the swing thing exploded and the label flew me back to L.A. to say: ‘Now we get it,’ but it was too late.”

Either way, the Little Big Band had launched.

“I met Roomful of Blues the very first day that we recorded sessions at Little Mountain Studios and I will never forget how nervous I was,” he said.

“When we played the MuchMusic live show you can see on YouTube now, we had one rehearsal with the whole band and Stevie Ray Vaughan keyboardist Reece Wynans before the show. Right after that, the group began a whole journey of its own from then on.”

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The group would go on to sold-out shows across Canada building a devoted following. The reality of large-size ensembles is that they hardly ever last, and James would shift back to the more rocking and stripped-down groups heard on albums such as 1995’s Bad Habits to 1997’s National Steel. But he wanted to revisit the idea someday and, in 1998, the second recording arrived.

“That record was done before Brian Setzer’s next project, but label issues meant that we missed the window once again,” he said.

“Suddenly, my album was coming out after Cherry Poppin’ Daddies and all these other acts and I looked like a straggler. It didn’t stop the Globe & Mail putting me on the cover of the entertainment pages, but by that time, the swing fad was already starting to overpower the music.”

Once the taste for Betty Page bangs, stovepipe slacks and Lindy Hop petered out, the fan base for the Little Big Band still remained strong enough that James revisited the concept once again with 2006’s 3. The holiday release was an obvious one to follow, as so many seasonal classics sound so fine given the uptempo take of the 1940’s jump blues genre.

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“The players really made those records what they are and a number of them have passed on over the years,” said James.

“That makes me particularly happy to have people like local bassist Norm Fisher and Greg Piccolo playing these coming shows. Greg is one of those players who has really studied the beatnik be-bop style and earlier ones and just brings that extra quality to the live big band shows.”

James has shifted gears again lately performing with his acoustic trio and says the experience of unplugging is as rewarding as the orchestral one.

“We’re always hitting the electric blues thing pretty hard and just got off touring with Buddy Guy,” he said.

“So when I get the acoustic trio shows, it’s a breath of fresh air and I can really change up my set. The band for the new album is incredible, with people like Rolling Stones’ bassist Darryl Jones on it, and I’m anxious and nervous but very excited. So these shows are really meant to give a nod to those Little Big Band albums at a time when everyone is incredibly busy.”

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James expects that there could be one-off additional gigs by pickup versions of the Little Big Band. But the chance to see this particular aggregation of players is unlikely to reunite again any time soon.

He says to expect more of the unexpected from the coming record.

sderdeyn@postmedia.com

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