Catching Tales

Performer: Jamie Cullum
Producer: Stewart Levine; Dan The Automator
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: Personnel: Jamie Cullum (vocals, guitar, keyboards); John Heard (double bass); Ben Cullum (bass guitar, background vocals); James Gadson, Ian Thomas (drums). Pianist and singer Jamie Cullum has been tagged as a new jazzbo, a Harry Connick, Jr.- type given to piano flurries and smooth crooning, when in truth he is a pop singer-songwriter much more in the mold of Ben Folds. It's true, however, that Cullum's piano playing can be jazz-inflected (especially on his solos), and his vocal lines can be nuanced, slinky, and interesting in ways that distinguish them from your run-of-the-mill popster. But if the contemporary pop tendencies were evident on TWENTYSOMETHING, this album's predecessor, they are even more pronounced on 2005's CATCHING TALES. In fact, Cullum makes a bid for au courant hipness by collaborating with Dan the Automator ("Get Your Way") and adding electronic flourishes throughout. These touches add a nice shimmer, but it is Cullum's straightforward tunes, relaxed and confident vocals, and clever, literate lyrics that hold the listener's attention.

Mojo (Publisher) (p.98) - 4 stars out of 5 - "The imagination is riotous, the songcraft maturer, the ambition heightened, and the musical reach is there to realise it."

Although his sound is a decidedly vintage one, pianist/singer-songwriter Jamie Cullum's own "Sinatra in Sneakers" persona is unique to the neo-hepcat set. Although Harry Connick, Jr., comparisons are inevitable, Cullum's jazz-crossover appeal has as much in common with Joni Mitchell's open-ended explorations of the form as it does with any neo-classicism. In fact, 2005's CATCHING TALES features a collaboration with hip-hop producer Dan the Automator: it's hard to imagine Michael Buble doing that.

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