Updated August 13, 2026 at 12:53 PM EDT
When Wilco keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen was a child, he visited his sound-engineer father Joe Jorgensen as he worked with jazz pianist and composer Bob James. Now, Mikael Jorgensen is making “Avant Smooth,” a documentary about James’ life and music.
“My dad was a recording engineer in New York City starting in 1957,” Mikael Jorgensen told Robin Young “And at a certain point, Bob was looking to have a full time engineer and looked to my dad. And I was so fortunate to be able to come along with my dad to sessions. It was my first exposure to music production and listening to the process of records being made. And you know, Bob is kind of the inception point for me of a life in music.”
James was discovered by Quincy Jones in 1963 when James and his trio were competing in the Notre Dame Jazz festival. But, as he tells Young
“I was a little bit of a smarty pants kind of guy at that time, very interested in avant garde music. And my trio went to that festival as a kind of joke,” James told Young. “The kind of music we were making we thought would never have any chance of actually winning because we were throwing marbles into an oil drum and, I don’t know, just a bunch of crazy stuff. We were totally shocked when Quincy got it, so much so that while we ended up winning individually on our instruments and our group won collectively as best group.”
James went on to record dozens of records and win two Grammy awards. He may be best known for his song “Angela,” which was used as the theme for the 1970s sitcom “Taxi.” But his music has also been sampled over 1,500 times, by hip-hop artists including DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.
At one point, James sued for copyright infringement, and won.
“I prevailed to the degree that I was worried that DJ Jazzy Jeff would be my enemy, but they were not having any problems because the record was super successful,” James said.
“And I decided at some point about four years ago that I actually wanted to meet Jazzy Jeff in person and see if we could collaborate in real time where it wouldn’t be them just taking something that I didn’t have any part of…On one my most recent albums, ‘Jazz Hands,’ Jazzy Jeff and I collaborated and have become friends, I’ve learned a lot more about their rap field as an art form.”
Numerous hip-hop musicians are slated to appear in Mikael Jorgensen’s upcoming documentary. He says that figuring out how to tell the story of James’ rich and varied career has been “an incredibly challenging and deeply, profoundly rewarding experience.”
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This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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