Artist: Jamie Cullum
Genre: Jazz/Pop
Release Year: 2005
Label: Candid
Right from the first note, it is obvious that Pointless Nostalgic isn't a traditional jazz album. Although Art Tatum and Keith Jarrett make fleeting entrances in Cullum's playing, his voice is his own and so is his style.
Genre: Jazz/Pop
Release Year: 2005
Label: Candid
Right from the first note, it is obvious that Pointless Nostalgic isn't a traditional jazz album. Although Art Tatum and Keith Jarrett make fleeting entrances in Cullum's playing, his voice is his own and so is his style.
You and the Night and the Music is cheeky, and I Can't Get Started is endearing, but the album doesn't really get going until the third track, an explosive cover of the jazz standard Devil May Care. Geoff Gascoyne's arrangement is a masterpiece and Cullum delivers a perfect vocal performance that is spikier than an electrocuted hedgehog. Martin Shaw's squeaky clean trumpet solo is also worth noting.
You're Nobody 'Till Somebody Loves You is an easy-going version of the jazz standard, cutting back to minimal instrumentation. It's not experimental, it's not ambitious, this is as pure and simple as jazz gets.
In Pointless Nostalgic, Cullum dips his toes into the ocean of pop music for the first time, but still keeps one foot firmly grounded on the beach of jazz. It is certainly a risk worth taking; the song brims with charm and charisma, and you can't help but relate to the catchy refrain, "Photographs lost in time are all I see/A pointless nostalgic, that's me".
And just as you think the album can't get any better....it doesn't.
In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning is disappointing after the gem of the previous track. The introduction sounds like the brass band had one too many on Christmas Eve, and when the tune does eventually come in, it plods on slower than a tortoise on crutches.
Thankfully, in the form of Thelonias Monk's Well You Needn't, help is at hand. Cullum breathes new life into a great jazz classic and makes it his own, as he also does with It Ain't Necessarily So, which - for me - is the highlight of the album. Cullum really captures the mood of the song, and adds enough grit to make the M25 safe in a blizzard.
The rest of the album carries on in the same way. High and Dry is an intelligent cover of the Radiohead original, and Lookin' Good shares the runaway cheek that started in Devil May Care.
The album takes its curtain call on I Want To Be A Popstar. It's a witty look at the modern music industry and it's irony more than makes up for the frankly dull melody.
Overall, Pointless Nostalgic is a fun debut for Cullum, and is full of promise and potential for future releases.
7/10
Buy Jamie Cullum's Pointless Nostalgic from amazon.co.uk
Tell us what you think of this album in the comments below. As always, we'd love to hear from you
Tom :)
You're Nobody 'Till Somebody Loves You is an easy-going version of the jazz standard, cutting back to minimal instrumentation. It's not experimental, it's not ambitious, this is as pure and simple as jazz gets.
In Pointless Nostalgic, Cullum dips his toes into the ocean of pop music for the first time, but still keeps one foot firmly grounded on the beach of jazz. It is certainly a risk worth taking; the song brims with charm and charisma, and you can't help but relate to the catchy refrain, "Photographs lost in time are all I see/A pointless nostalgic, that's me".
And just as you think the album can't get any better....it doesn't.
In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning is disappointing after the gem of the previous track. The introduction sounds like the brass band had one too many on Christmas Eve, and when the tune does eventually come in, it plods on slower than a tortoise on crutches.
Thankfully, in the form of Thelonias Monk's Well You Needn't, help is at hand. Cullum breathes new life into a great jazz classic and makes it his own, as he also does with It Ain't Necessarily So, which - for me - is the highlight of the album. Cullum really captures the mood of the song, and adds enough grit to make the M25 safe in a blizzard.
The rest of the album carries on in the same way. High and Dry is an intelligent cover of the Radiohead original, and Lookin' Good shares the runaway cheek that started in Devil May Care.
The album takes its curtain call on I Want To Be A Popstar. It's a witty look at the modern music industry and it's irony more than makes up for the frankly dull melody.
Overall, Pointless Nostalgic is a fun debut for Cullum, and is full of promise and potential for future releases.
7/10
Buy Jamie Cullum's Pointless Nostalgic from amazon.co.uk
Tell us what you think of this album in the comments below. As always, we'd love to hear from you
Tom :)
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