Jamie Cullum and His Purple Crayon
Jamie Cullum is a twenty-something, jazz-punky, piano-playing Brit crooner, who writes his own stuff, covers standards and utilizes the occasional hip-hop loop or sample. If you can watch his live concert from Blenheim Palace and not emerge a fan, then he’s just not going to do it for you. From that concert, here’s his take on one of my favorite songs of all-time, Brian Wilson’s God Only Knows, with a Beatlesque, Eleanor Rigby-like arrangement by Geoff Gascoyne:
His video for the hip-hoppy Get Your Way (with a sampled interlude from a Joe William’s tune) looks like “Jamie and His Purple Crayon” by way of Chuck Jones’s Daffy Duck classic cartoon, Duck Amuck:
On his two major studio albums, he handles well old standards like Singin’ in the Rain, as well as Hendrix’s The Wind Cries Mary and Radiohead’s High and Dry. My favorite of all his covers is the great Cole Porter tune, I Get a Kick Out Of You. Though I prefer the studio recording, this live take is also good and offers an even more rhythmic approach:
I’m eager to hear his next album — when, Jamie?
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