JAMES JUDSON, Songs of My Dreams

Fully embracing and embodying the title of his full-length debut Songs of My Dreams, James Judson reveals himself not only as a graceful, deeply soulful balladeer and charming crooner with an impeccable sense of swing, but also as an effortlessly talented vocalist who never gave up on his lifelong dream to sing - and literally gains inspiration from his subconscious dreams.

After pursuing music into his 30s, he reached a crossroads to raise his large family (six kids) and build a successful construction business. Just before the pandemic, he came to L.A. to help with a construction project his daughter was working on and she introduced him to a local singer, songwriter and rapper named Don Taicher. His new friend convinced him to buy a guitar and suddenly, those long set aside musical dreams roared back – ultimately culminating in this magnificent album of 11 compelling originals and two lushly arranged, ultra-charming standards (“The Shadow of Your Smile,” “All of Me,” the latter a sublime duet with Laura Cole) featuring contributions from 30 (!) of L.A.’s top jazz cats.

It’s testament to his long dormant but now vibrantly resurrected songwriting talent that he dares to debut with something more than a set of classics he could sing in his sleep. It’s as if he wants us to understand the fullness of his heart and the life that led him to grace us with this now. In his thoughtful liner notes, he explains his surreal songwriting process: “My dreams usually begin normally, then I begin to hear music. It gets louder until I realize the music is from the dream. This is usually when I wake up with a song, sometimes fully formed, sometimes just a melody and a few key lyrics.” He felt he “had visits” from Frank Sinatra and Marvin Gaye for some, prompting him to wonder, “Where do we go in the subconscious of our dreams?”

Even skeptics about such things will delight in the results, which find Judson journeying from the hip, brass-fired opening swinger “Is There A Chance” and the breezy eternity minded nighttime romance “Stars Past the Milky Way” through the sweet smoky tenderness of “My Imagination” (featuring the dreamy – pun intended - sax of Doug Webb) and the string enhanced “Candlelight or Roses” and the cheerfully strutting “Walking a Sidewalk.” It’s one of those transcendent albums makes you wonder where an artist has been all your life, and whose songs are so magical that you may ask yourself if you somehow missed a few of these songs on albums by Sinatra or Tony Bennett.