Weds 30th April - The Big Top
Jamie Cullum opened up the
proceedings for Cheltenham Jazz Festival 2014 with an explosive double-bill
performance in the large circus-style Big Top Arena, located in Montpellier
Gardens.
With a full day of sunshine in
preparation and the on-site bar and restaurant open before the show, the
audience were in good spirits as they took their seats. One gentleman told me
before the show that the last time he had seen Jamie perform was in an audience
of around twenty people back when the young jazz singer/pianist was just 19. It
would seem that a lot has changed in the fifteen years since his days of
producing jazzy piano/vocal renditions of popular songs and jazz standards.
For starters, where he was once a
solo performer with perhaps with a drummer and bassist in tow, now he came with
an army of friends; a string quartet, double bassist, guitarist, pianist,
drummer and a Musical Director to help conduct the full-sized big band brass
section.
The show began with a bang, with
a brass heavy version of his hit single “Get Your Way”, with the backing band
allowing Jamie to free himself from the piano and lead from the front of the
stage. This showed a massive departure from his rough around the edges vocal
style of his earlier material and a development into an outstanding vocalist,
who just happens to be a world-class jazz pianist too!
Jamie’s performance was engaging,
energetic and enthusiastic, throwing his smartly dressed self across the stage
whilst enjoying the extended brass solos. Some old habits like tapping on the
piano lid have been replaced by full-on piano acrobatics, which needed two men
to fix the piano afterwards, and running into the crowd with a megaphone, which
was a particular highlight for many the near-capacity audience.
Jamie’s new material with the big
band demonstrated a significant development in his songwriting style which
seems to have evolved from album to album. As a big supporter of upcoming jazz
artists, Jamie hosts a popular Radio 2 show every Tuesday night at 7pm, which
has introduced him to many of his recent collaborators, including Ben Lamdin
from Nostalgia77, with whom he has recorded his upcoming album, due to be
released later this year, which Jamie describes as “the first actual jazz album
I’ve ever made”.
The arrangements were varied and
dynamic whilst the performance was exhilarating in places and quite moving in
others, particularly his covers of Sufjan Stevens’ “The Seer’s Tower”, which
opened with the haunting string quartet introduction, his favourite Randy
Newman track “Losing You” and his smooth and sultry version of Pure
Imagination, from his last album Momentum.
The pièce de résistance of
the performance was the encore, during which Jamie asked the audience who had
already all stood up to applaud the show to stay risen, clap their hands and
jump up and down to the music. Anybody with a lesser presence would have surely
been met with raised eyebrows, particularly from the more senior or reserved
audience members, but on his command the entire audience seemed to move as one,
creating a sea of heads from the back of the tiered seating all the way to the
front row of the stalls, creating an atmosphere that you might expect during a
Glastonbury headliner, but not during a jazz gig in April. Once again Jamie has
shown that there are no boundaries between pop, rock and jazz that cannot be
crossed.
The last thing I heard leaving
the arena from a smartly dressed lady in a red dress was “I am in pure bliss”.
Let’s hope that Sophie Dahl doesn't hear about this else Jamie’s earlier
warning to the audience member who shouted out “I love you Jamie” that his wife
would “kick her arse” may come to fruition.
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