Jazzman José James: A Dreamer Grows in Brooklyn

José James’ distinctive style of jazz is built on a lifelong appreciation of diverse musical genres. “When I was growing up my mom played a lot of folk and ‘60s protest music,” he tellsBrooklyn Roads. Later he got into Prince, became “a huge Michael Jackson fan from Off The Wall on,” and then, in high school, “I discovered hip-hop – A Tribe Called Quest, Digable Planets, The Beastie Boys, Ice Cube, Cypress Hill, The Pharcyde.” He also dug the Breeders, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Nine Inch Nails and Boyz II Men – “basically all the dope ‘90’s-‘00s music,” he says.

James, whose current album, While You Were Sleeping, was recorded at The Motherbrain in Sunset Park, ended up singing jazz because “I had a baritone and all the male jazz singers are baritones – and because I didn’t have a rap voice.” He was first exposed to jazz through samples in hip-hop songs, “and got into that pretty heavy from Louis Armstrong on.” While he acknowledges the likes of John Coltrane and Billie Holiday as strong influences, he tells Brooklyn Roads, “I try not to think too deeply about who influenced what because I don’t enjoy thinking about music that way.”

Likewise he says he doesn’t care if anyone ever covers his songs (“I’m like Prince, I guess; I like my own versions”), although there are a few he wishes he had written: “Something like Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together or Bill Withers’ Grandma’s Hands. Real society music. “

The Minneapolis-born James relocated to Brooklyn in 1999 because “by that time Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Jay-Z and everyone was making Brooklyn seem like the cultural center of the world, which it was. I felt like I was in the middle of something really special. I got to see Dead Prez and people like that and it was really inspiring,” he says. He feels that it was Black artists such as these, along with Spike Lee, who “put Brooklyn on the map culturally.”

James has lived in three neighborhoods here – first Crown Heights, then Park Slope and now Fort Greene. “So I’ve seen some different sides of [Brooklyn],” he says. “I walked through a drug raid in my first apartment building and then years later watched them build the Barclays Center. The change has been just incredible.”

In Brooklyn he found “a neighborhood vibe… laid back and strong,” as well as great diversity, which is why he feels our borough is such a rich breeding ground for creativity. “There are people from all over the world here and it rubs off on you. Brooklyn has a rep and people of color are still pushing against so many things – poverty, police brutality, social injustice. You feel that no matter what. The desire to transcend the street can be found all through Jay-Z’s music, through rap.”

To his fellow artists looking for a great venue to play James says: “Brooklyn audiences are the best. I’ve performed at Littlefield, Music Hall of Williamsburg. BAM, Prospect Park Bandshell, Galapagos, The Brooklyn Museum, and of course Weeksville, which was just fantastic. I don’t think there’s a better, more informed and more stylish audience than in Brooklyn.”

It was in front of one such audience on his birthday this past January where James enjoyed “a personal career highlight–I performed at BAM for Martin Luther King Day.” Fittingly for the occasion, he sang The Dreamer, the title track from his first album. The experience, he says, “was amazing.”