Commentary: Jazz phenom Jamie Cullum makes U.S. debut

        NEW YORK, Oct. 14 (UPI) -- The buzz that preceded  
bantam-weight British jazz singer Jamie Cullum's U.S. debut at the 
Algonquin Hotel's legendary Oak Room was almost unprecedented for a 
virtually unknown 24-year-old vocalist and composer, even if he did 
entertain Queen Elizabeth II on the 50th anniversary of her reign 
and has a admirer in Prince William. 
        Cullum made headlines in Britain earlier this year when he  
signed a $1.5 million contract with Universal's Verve label for four 
albums after a bidding war with Sony. Only three years ago, when he 
was studying English literature and film at Reading University, he 
used a student loan to record his first album, which earned him 
enough to record another, "Pointless Nostalgic," that was picked up 
by Candid, a small label. 
        The Candid album got him noticed and pushed him to the  
forefront of cross-over jazz artists, most generally compared to 
American star Harry Connick Jr., whose career was launched at the 
Oak Room, or Canadian-born diva Diana Krall. Unlike them, he is a 
self-taught musician whose brash pianism and ebullient but gritty 
tenor singing style still have some rough edges, and he has yet to 
establish himself as an international star. 
        But Dickon Stainer, the Universal marketing director for  
jazz, said in an interview he would have done anything to sign 
Cullum for his label, because "He is simply the most talented 
musician we've ever come across." And a born showman, too. 
        Cullum's three-week engagement ending next Saturday at the  
Algonquin -- the first ever for a European jazz singer there -- has 
gone a long way toward making his name a familiar one in pop music 
circles on this side of the Atlantic, but he is the first to admit 
he still isn't completely comfortable with his growing fame and the 
excitement surrounding his just-released first album for Verve, 
appropriately titled "Twentysomething." 
        "I never set out to make a career of this, and I never  
sought a record deal," Cullum told UPI. "I had hoped to become a 
journalist or a filmmaker. To be honest, I still think someone is 
going to come and tell me that it's all big joke." 
        Cullum has sung well over 1,000 gigs since he was 15 and was  
pianist for the now defunct rock group Taxi, and his experience 
shows. Judging from his Oak Room performance, he is a supremely 
confident artist who has been able to realized his goal of "being 
the young guy singing old songs with a fresh mentality." He is full 
of surprises, such as beating on the piano case like a drum, and 
never lets his audience relax its attention for a moment. 
        Blessed with the support of two great backup  
instrumentalists -- Geoff Gascoyne on bass and Sebastiaan deKrom on 
drums -- the diminutive singer with tousled hair and soulful brown 
eyes romps impishly through nearly a dozen songs, opening with "All 
at Sea," a charming sea ditty of his own composition recalling his 
experiences as a cruise ship pianist. 
        Then he pays his respects to some of his favorite composers  
-- George Gershwin ("But Not for Me" and "It Ain't Necessarily So"), 
Cole Porter ("I Get a Kick Out of You" and "I've Got You Under My 
Skin"), Burton Lane ("Old Devil Moon") and Bob Durrough's "Not For 
Now," a catchy romantic ballad saved for his encore number. 
        He is at his supreme best singing a revved-up, foot-stamping  
version of Radiohead's "High and Dry" and Jimi Hendrix's "The Wind 
Cries Mary," which he ends by literally beating up the keyboard to 
create a sound storm. If any of his renditions could be said to be 
banal, it is that of Sammy Cahn's "It Had To Be You," but he ends it 
with a dazzling scat riff. The only number sung languorously was an 
unfamiliar Oscar Levant ballad, "Blame It on My Youth." 
        There is little to blame on Cullum's youth, except for an  
overly energetic brashness that may moderate with time. It is not 
surprising to learn he comes from a musical family, son of a 
successful Wiltshire businessman father of Palestinian descent who 
played the guitar and a mother of Burmese background who sang. 
Together with a granddad on sax, and an uncle on guitar, the Cullum 
family played pub dates in the 1960s. 
        Cullum also is a guitarist, as is his 28-year-old brother,  
Ben, a musical star in his own right who composes songs with his 
younger brother. They wrote the title song for "Twentysomething," a 
post-modern, deprecating but funny song about "freaking out in your 
twenties, after all that education and still not knowing how to live 
your life." 
        "I'm still learning, still discovering," Jamie Cullum says.  
"There's even a couple of Beatles albums I haven't heard and a lots 
of corners of jazz I haven't explored. I want to make jazz more 
acceptable to young audiences. I'm not pushing boundaries, but I am 
mixing things up a bit."