Quick! Name a hot, young male singer making waves on today's mainstream jazz scene. Michael Bublé, Peter Cincotti, Sachal Vasandani, Jamie Cullum? Alright. Now name a hot, young, black male singer making the same inroads. Eh???

If you're stumped, it's very understandable. Thanks, in huge part, to the overwhelming commercial success of vocalists such as Norah Jones, Diana Krall and Harry Connick Jr., singers have become the most commercially viable jazz vehicles on the scene today.

Cassandra Wilson, Dianne Reeves, Nnenna Freelon have contributed to the steady influx of black females on the jazz scene. But setting aside the heroic comebacks of seasoned veterans, Jimmy Scott, Andy Bey and Freddy Cole, the brothers have been few and far between. The last memorable, black male jazz singer to get shine from both big-money labels and the mainstream jazz press was Kevin Mahogany, and that was a decade ago.

The seeming dearth of emerging black male singers is, in part, what makes the arrival of Brooklyn-based José James worth celebrating with the same auspiciousness of say, Living Colour's breakthrough in the late-'80s. Just as it was at once ironic and sad that we had to make note of Living Colour's racial singularity in the white-dominated rock world, despite black rock pioneers such as Ike Turner, Jimi Hendrix, Parliament-Funkadelic, the same can be said of James' "endangered species" status on today's mainstream jazz male scene. It's as if Nat King Cole, Johnny Hartman, Joe Williams, Eddie Jefferson and a legion of other legendary black male singers never existed.

James, fortunately, has more trump cards than the race one to play to his advantage. Whereas of his mainstream contemporaries have garnered props for retooling the Rat Pack aesthetic of the '50s and '60s, either by song choice, vocal delivery or stage demeanor, James forges bona fide jazz crooning steeped in hip-hop culture. He's so rooted in it that he doesn't have to sing any of those contrived "from bebop to hip-hop" lyrics from the acid-jazz boom to illustrate it. On his stunning debut, The Dreamer (Brownwood)—released in January of this year—he delivers a magnificent makeover of Freestyle Fellowship's '90s underground hip-hop classic, "Park Bench People" and makes an even more ingenious if subversive hip-hop nod with his rugged rendering of Bill Lee's "Nola" from the soundtrack of Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It.

Sonically, The Dreamer feels more hip-hop, too, but not in the glimmering-ringtone sense of hip-pop. Instead, itboasts the dark, haunting sounds of vintage jazz labels, Strata East, Flying Dutchman and Chess, which in turn, informed the soulful grooves of some of today's stellar hip-hop producers and DJs such as Madlib, 4hero's Marc Mac and the late J Dilla. Its soundscapes superbly insulate James' baritone, which he enlivens with a conversational, behind-the-beat phrasing that's rhythmically agile to tackle tricky verses geared more toward a rapper, and lyrical enough to handle slow, sensual ballads.

Unlike most mainstream jazz vocals discs, The Dreamer steers clear of the classic American songbook. In addition to the two aforementioned covers, the only other is his riveting take on Rahsaan Roland Kirk's "Spirits Up Above." The discemphasizes more on James' cunning originals, such as the quicksilver, drum-n-bass driven, "Love," the wistful "Winter Wind" and the forceful "Desire." James exhibits a knack for writing hooky melodies and thoughtful lyrics, which so far, mostly touch upon affairs of the heart. Still, he's not afraid to venture into social commentary as evident by the titled-track, a heartfelt, slightly mawkish tone poem for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Except for Junior Mance, a somewhat under-celebrated bebop pianist, who plays on "Spirits Up Above," The Dreamer curiously and refreshingly features no other A-list special guest appearances, a ploy that many mainstream jazz vocal records use to bolster sales.

But as stylish, soulful and sophisticated as The Dreamer is, it's also shamefully slept-on—at least by the U.S. mainstream jazz community at large. It's barely made a dint in terms of press presence from the three major U.S. jazz magazines: JazzTimes, Jazziz and Down Beat (full disclaimer: I did write a small feature on James for Down Beat this year). James didn't rank in Down Beat'sfamous annual critic's poll for "Rising Star Male Jazz Vocalist" category. (The magazine's readers poll has yet to be published.). If you click on "Jazz Vocals" on Amazon, you'd immediately see top-selling albums by Bublé, Sinatra and Melody Gardot, but will have to enter James' name to get to The Dreamer, which as of this writing, sadly ranks at 9,004. In fact, if you search under Amazon's "Vocal Jazz," The Dreamer doesn't appear at all. The disc shows similar low ranking on Borders; as for Barnes & Noble's Web site, it doesn't come up at all—ditto for Billboard magazine and JazzWeek magazine, which charts jazz radio airplay.

Not surprisingly, James receives far recognition across the Atlantic. One of the reasons is probably because his CD was released on Brownwood, a small indie-label, owned by celebrated British jazz, funk, electronica BBC DJ and radio personality and impresario, Giles Peterson. Europe also seems to afford James more performance and touring opportunities as his Web site lists dates in Paris, Geneva, Southampton (U.K.) and Montpellier (France). He does perform regularly at New York's Nublu, though.

James has also made a more indelible impression in DJ culture than jazz, thanks to some spectacular deep house and broken beat remixes of "blackeyedsusan," "Desire," "Love" and "Spirits Up Above," by I.G. Culture, Moodymann, Ben Westbeech, Simbad, respectively.

James may be an endangered species, stuck as he is in today's confining and overly codified realm of mainstream jazz male singers. But the accolades he's slowly building from the European jazz scene and underground DJ culture, proves that he's a jazz survivor—whether the U.S. jazz scene wakes up or not.

John Murph is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist who writes frequently about music and culture. He regularly contributes to The Washington Post Express, NPR, JazzTimes, Down Beat and BET Interactive.