Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 26/09/05
Label: Universal

Cast your mind back 18 months ago, when he was duetting with Katie Melua at the Brits, and Jamie Cullum's career looked pretty well mapped-out: Parky, MOR covers and bap-de-bap-bap slap-the-piano-lid jazz. Jazzzzzzz. Together with Katie Melua, he was Lord of the Bland. A reincarnation of Richard Stilgoe, screwing the corpse of a long-dead musical form. At least that's what the critics would have you believe.

But since that desecration of "Love Cats", preconceptions have been blown. Considerably. and Melua's respective career trajectories could not have evolved more differently. While she has re-written her biggest hit to advertise soft furnishings, he has spun off in a thousand different directions. Working with everyone from Pharrell to the BBC Big Band, Britain's most successful jazz artist now defies categorisation. And for a man who once appeared more fortysomething than twentysomething, he is arguably one of our most experimental. Compared to a leaden predictability of a Pete Doherty, Cullum is Stockhausen. Well, nearly.

"Catching Tales" certainly marks a huge leap forward from his previous work. For a start, there is less of a reliance on covers and jazz standards. So-so reinterpretations of "I Get A Kick Out Of You" and "Blame It On My Youth" have been supplanted by a series of credible and creditable collaborations and a swag bag of originals. Certainly, the single "Get Your Way", written in collaboration with Dan The Automator, is fantastic. Anchoring rinky dink pianos to the breakbeat from "Get Out Of My Life Woman", it finds Cullum coolly playing the Milk Tray Man. It's clever, sure, and the idea of Cullum as Mr Loverman is probably an unlikely one, but it works.

The same goes for the self-penned "Nothing I Do", which builds from jazz riffing into a tune Elvis Costello would be rightly proud. On "Photograph" he's scoring some "stuff", on "21st Century Kid" he makes a melodic stand about Iraq, and a cover of Doves' "Catch The Sun" just soars. Best of all is "Back To The Ground", a hook-up with Ed Harcourt that manages both midnight sultriness and passionate pop sensibility.

It's not all good, obviously. "London Skies", the collaboration with Guy Chambers - whose best ideas always start with someone else's - waddles ham-fistedly when it wants to skip in the daisies. Ditto the interpretation of "I Only Have Eyes For You" which, ironically enough, might have been better played with a straight bat, rather than the bells and whistles version here.

And, at 15 tracks, the album is simply too long. Some judicious editing would be advisable in the future, but Cullum is moving forward with speed and verve, and a truly great album is surely within his grasp. Remembering him for Wogan and slightly annoying finger-clicking jazz would be like judging Bowie on the "Laughing Gnome". Watch this space with interest.

    by Adam Webb