The not-exactly-overpopulated terrain where jazz, hip-hop, show tunes and pop meet is dominated by Jamie Cullum, the only artist who can praise the 19th-century spiritual Motherless Child for its “sick, sick beats” without sounding hopelessly contrived. His late-night Prom offered a twist on his multi-genre format: hosting a string of talents who operate in one or other of the genres, he created a highbrow mixtape that generously spotlighted his revolving door of guests. The Mercury prize-nominated jazz-soul singer Eska, Sheffield rapper Coco, the high-voltage Heritage Orchestra and Roundhouse Choir and others put him through his paces, a battle he won through force of personality.
He and Eska were an odd couple on Good Morning, Heartache (“Pretty faithful to the original arrangement,” Cullum points out) – she elegant and measured, he a frazzle-haired piano-pounder. They were no odder than Cullum and Coco, the latter’s muscular flow jabbed through Cullum’s buttercream crooning during a brassy Love for Sale.
He was never stationary: when not beatboxing to a cruise-ship version of Can’t Feel My Face, he was in the balcony, swinging along to Old Devil Moon, or dancing like nobody’s watching to the self-written The Same Things. A showoff in the most agreeable way, Cullum didn’t neglect to mock his lack of height, leading into a fantastically raunchy “theme tune to a Bond film that doesn’t exist”, as he described Edge of Something. He wondered if he could be the next Bond. Perhaps not, but he could play the charismatic saloon pianist.
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