A small club, no chairs, everybody standing, milling, wobbling with the beat. Lotta drinking, mostly beers with depth charges of vodka or tequila. Me, I blew the bartender away by asking for a Belgian ale with a depth charge of cognac. Possibly you have to hear Jose James at a club in order to grasp his Gestalt. I know I find this CD much more interesting after hearing the man live. He's witty, gentle, humane. Soft hands, you might say, for a scrawny guy with loose joints. Most of his humor deals with being "wasted." Smashed. Soused. Whatever your idiom-generation. Is he stoned? Are all the dudes in the band? I wouldn't bet against it.There's a lot of variety in Jose James's music. Some critics might say he's still searching for his own identity. A little Johnny Mathis, a lot of Bobby McFerrin, a smidgin of Eminem? Hey, he's from Minneapolis! Blues-jazz-hiphop, according to his own publicity. But that's okay with me. He's a trained musician, he can comp. I'd be bored with any single version of Jose James, but when he surprises me every number, I sit up and listen. Or stand, as the case may be. He's open-ended. This CD includes a Hindu musician. The band I heard included a black Japanese trumpeter, whose jazz improvs got livelier the more blotto he looked. That band was a quintet, all shades of black and tan except for one stiff-faced working-class English bloke ... on the drums. A certain historical irony there: think of the jazz quintets of Dave Brubeck or Chet Baker, all white except the drummers.This isn't the sort of music I listen to most of the time. I'm not really qualified to critique it on its own terms. Baroque and Classical fans, just give it a try. You might respond to it.