James is an instrumental jazz fusion tune composed by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays. The Pat Metheny Group recorded it in October 1981 at the Power Station in New York City, and it was released in 1982 on the album Offramp, the group's third studio album, produced by Manfred Eicher for ECM. On the album it is the third track on side two, running 6:47. The album was critically acclaimed and won the Playboy Readers Poll award for Best Jazz Album. In 1983 it earned the group its first Grammy, for Best Jazz Fusion Performance, the first of ten Grammys the group would win. Later versions by Marco Pereira and Nico Assumpção, Jason Vieaux, Catrin Finch and John Pizzarelli have followed. Lyle Mays died in 2020.
