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Jamie Cullum
The Pursuit
He may be a piano man, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to categorize Jamie Cullum. Sometimes he’s as upbeat and entertaining as Ben Folds, other times he’s a consummate storyteller a la Billy Joel, while sometimes he turns towards crooner territory that would fancy Harry Connick Jr. or Michael Buble fans. On his fifth studio CD, all of those qualities remain, which sometimes evoke the timeless sensibility of his breakthrough disc Twentysomething from 2003 and in other cases come across in less flattering contexts.
He’s right in jazzy step covering Cole Porter’s “Just One of Those Things” with a sophisticated big band backing and also excels throughout the wry swinger “You and Me Are Gone.” But he’s completely corny come a straight up department store ballad version of Rihanna’s “Don’t Stop the Music” and a little too lounge-like to charm the younger crowd come “If I Ruled the World” and “I Think I Love.”
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