Jamie Cullum
Driskill Hotel, Friday, March 19 After tickling the piano keys a bit and welcoming the crowd, a T-shirt and tennies-clad Jamie Cullum stood on his piano bench and, sans microphone, sang his opening lines a cappella. Reaching the noun in Cole Porter’s “I Get a Kick Out of You,” he literally stomped the piano while his rhythm section fell in behind him. Off to the races they went, Cullum interchanging swift runs across the ivories with syncopated hand-drumming on top of the piano. No, this was not your typical jazz trio. The diminutive, London-based dynamo is a sensation in the UK where his debut, Twentysomething, has gone double platinum and is about to drop Stateside in May. In fact, all but one of the seven tunes in his set came off the new album. He followed the opener with Radiohead’s “High and Dry” and a detour through “Singin’ in the Rain,” again grandstanding on his seat, singing a cappella, and pounding rhythms inside and on top of the piano. While certainly competent on the 88s, it’s Cullum’s youthful and playful exuberance that’s so infectious. He has jazz in his heart without the staid seriousness that all too often hampers its accessibility. Vocally, he recalls Harry Connick Jr. on caffeine. Calling the album’s wry title track his “quarter life crisis,” Cullum turned it into a spirited hand-clapping sing-along. He paid homage to his greatest influence by digging deeply and soulfully into Jeff Buckley’s plaintive “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over.” Pounding and kicking out a house beat from underneath the piano to complement his drummer’s semisecond line, Cullum ended the set with a joyous, scat sing-along rendition of “I Could Have Danced All Night” from My Fair Lady. Who says jazz can’t be fun?This article appears in March 26 • 2004.