Niche is thrilled to present the return of singer-songwriter Jose James to Australian shores in February 2013. After an all too brief appearance in Australia with shows at Melbourne International Jazz Festival and a less-than-24-hour stop off in Sydney for the sold out Future Now show (featuring Robert Glasper Experiment and Taylor Mcferrin), the Brooklyn native of Irish-Panamanian descent who defies classification will take in a series of shows to present his brand new album for Blue Note No Beginning, No End.

"No Beginning No End sums up how I feel about music right now," says Jos James of his Blue Note Records debut. "I don't want to be confined to any particular style. I decided I didn't want to be considered a jazz singer anymore and that was really freeing. Once I realized that jazz singing is just something that I do and it's just a label, it freed me as an artist to just write without any boundaries." No Beginning No End is a seamless musical experience that moves between different styles with remarkable fluidity, bound together by James' transcendent voice. It marks a new chapter in the artistic journey of the 33-year-old singer/songwriter. Conceived, recorded and produced independently without any recording contract, the album is his most personal statement yet.

Along the way, he recruited a mighty team of collaborators that include noted producer/bassist Pino Palladino; pianist/composer and fellow Blue Note artist Robert Glasper; R&B singer/songwriter/guitarist Emily King; international French-Moroccan singing star Hindi Zahra; and the 2011 Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition winner Kris Bowers. "I feel like this is my first album as an artist," James says, "This is the first time in which there were no label, no A&R - nothing but myself and my relationship and history with my music."

James has already established himself as a trailblazer for his intoxicating blend of jazz, hip-hop, R&B and electronica from his previous three albums. His 2008 debut The Dreamer and its 2010 followup,
BlackMagic - both produced by the world-renowned DJ Gilles Peterson - transformed the Minneapolis-born, New York-based singer into an underground sensation in both the modern jazz and DJ culture scenes. His musical path follows its own rhyme and reason. James is a musical omnivore, an artist that resists being pigeonholed, equally at ease on stage with jazz legend McCoy Tyner as he is in the studio with rapper Oh No or electronica pioneer Flying Lotus.

After playing to enraptured fans in Sydney and Melbourne in June 2012, it's time for Jose James and his band to make a victory lap off the back of the forthcoming Blue Note debut and cement his place in Australia as a true player in the international Soul & Jazz community whose work will be enjoyed for decades to come. Do not miss these shows!