Jamie Cullum often divides jazz purists into those who think he’s offering a one-size-fits-all pop version of the genre and those who admire his passion for repopularising the music. His shows certainly have something for everybody. He reinvents Eminem’s My Name Is and Billie Eilish’s Bury a Friend as swing-era standards. He is a stellar pianist, sublime crooner, hip-hop soul man and one-liner machine. “This is the second time I’ve worn these trousers,” he says, glancing down at a pair covered in glitter. “I’m channelling pre-cocaine Elton John.”
The likable, multi-faceted star was the UK’s biggest selling jazz artist ever by the age of 24, but despite being a wonderful showman, some routines are becoming that little well-worn. He’s been singing in the audience and explaining how When I Get Famous is “no way based on anyone on this stage” for years. Now a boyish 40, there seems to be a whiff of self-doubt creeping in.
Cullum says he was writing such “complete bollocks” three years ago that he considered “walking away to become a dentist”. Before a spellbinding All at Sea, written as a pre-fame 19-year-old, he becomes wistful about the days when he could write such “pure, uncomplicated songs”. The new – and actually pure and uncomplicated – The Age of Anxiety asks: “Are we raising up our children right? Is my career gonna reignite?”
Still, with sold-out shows and another Top 20 album with last year’s Taller, he’s hardly on his uppers. This show doesn’t have quite the manic energy of ones a few years back, but he beautifully interprets Dinah Washington’s What a Diff’rence a Day Makes, before rampaging from jazz to funk to Afrobeat and urges the crowd to defy security and dance wildly in the aisles.
There’s a lovely moment when he reveals that after the tour he will give away his beloved £60,000 handmade grand piano to a school or charity so it may “inspire others”. Perhaps someone might even follow in his Chelsea-booted footsteps and sing standing on top of it.
• At SEC Armadillo, Glasgow, on 12 March. Then touring until 27 March.
