COURTESY OF ERIC ALCANTARA Drummer Jerome James puts his trio through its paces. Bassist Mark Tanouye and guitarist Gilbert Batangan round out the band.

Jazzy Jerome James

He's 'hipping the kids'

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Shawn "Speedy" Lopes
slopes@starbulletin.com

Even over the phone, Jerome James' enthusiasm is contagious. His voice crackles with excitement at the mention of jazz and its hallowed giants. "You listen to something like John Coltrane's 'A Love Supreme' -- it's so intense," gushes the young bandleader of his own self-named trio with a measure of awe. "That album makes you want to scream sometimes. When you get in that zone as a musician, you're really connected to something else. The spirit, whatever you want to call it, is a form of meditation, and that's what we're all heading toward as musicians: that feeling that you're no longer playing music -- the music is playing you."

The Jerome James Trio Where: The Jazz Loft, 260 Lewers St. (next to the Red Lion) When: 9 p.m. to midnight Wednesdays Admission: Free Call: 922-5715 or jeromeja@hotmail.com for more info

To play or be played. That was the question that led James to such places as Cuba and New York City in search of the musical truth. On hiatus from the Big Apple, where he has lived for two years as a musician, the 26-year-old rhythm keeper is back home on Oahu for a spell, where he hopes to help turn the Jazz Loft on Waikiki's Lewers Street into a minstrel's paradise.

(The venue is also home Thursdays through Saturdays to the 3EM Trio. Concentrating on the jazz of the '30s-'50s, the trio is made up of Lew Maddox on drums and the brother duo of Buddy Mak, 70, on piano and Daryl Mackay, 63, on bass.)

"I'm trying to make a musician's hangout," James said, "where musicians can come together, talk and share ideas. There's just not enough of that in Hawaii. Cats are out there (in New York) every night, not just to see shows, but to talk with other musicians about each other's music. I'm really hoping it'll become a place where people connect and collaborate."

While many expect the son of renowned drummer Chuck James to have received a head start in music, he says he never aspired to follow in his father's footsteps. "I hated it when my dad would sing jazz tunes around the house," he reveals. "I was a full-on punk-rock kid who hated jazz. I was into Bad Religion, Bad Brains, NOFX and Pennywise. I didn't want to hear anything else."

James decided to take up the drums at 18, and within a year and a half, he was teaching students at his father's studio. It was while sitting in with the elder James' band at Sand Island R&B in the mid-'90s that an appreciation for the blues and, later, jazz was cultivated. "As Miles (Davis) said, 'If you don't know how to play the blues, you don't know how to play s---,'" he quips.

It wasn't long before he began honing his chops with such local notables as Cecilio & Kapono, Azure McCall and Tennyson Stephens.

COURTESY OF ERIC ALCANTARA

Consumed by the pursuit of musical knowledge, James found in 1997 a back-door route to Cuba, where he studied with Enrique Pla, master percussionist with the dynamic Cuban ensemble Irakere. Though he stayed for only a month, the experience had a profound impact on his musical direction.

"When you get to those higher levels of music, you see that dancing and playing music is the same thing," he says. "That's how it is in Cuba. I feel that I dance on the drums now. At least I try to."

In the Jerome James Trio, James is complemented by bassist Mark Tanouye ("my musical buddy") and Gilbert Batangan ("a great New York-style bop player") on guitar. His colleagues share an understanding of his progressive ideas. "The concept I'm going for is the energy of a rock band at the level (of musicianship) of a jazz group, mixed in with a lot of modern, drum 'n' bass, electronic style of music," he says. "But it's still totally jazz. It's something I think young people can get into. Any conscious person can appreciate this music if they really listen to it."

James says he'll try to "hip the kids" of his generation to his post-bop sounds by playing the next "Avant Pop" event at Club Pauahi in mid-March.

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