Jamie Cullum was sitting in a Dubai bar last Thursday, readying for a private concert, and hoping it would be memorable — although perhaps not as memorable as another private show he did in the city, back in 2008, where he’d spent the day before the event in hospital with smashed-up face.
“Oh. My. God,” he utters with a laugh as I remind him of his performance at the launch of a fashion store. “I had my sunglasses on. Do you remember why? Do you see this scar on my nose? I got that the night before when I fell through a glass table. I tripped in my hotel room — completely sober — and I was in hospital all day that day, and the gig was nearly cancelled.”
He took the stage with plenty of painkillers, sunglasses to cover his black eyes — and put on a rollocking show that I have not easily forgotten.
“I will always remember that gig,” he agrees.
Last week’s concert, held in the enclosed garden of the St. Regis Dubai, on Shaikh Zayed Road, was just as enthralling, although thankfully Cullum, 36, was fighting fit. Cullum is one of the luxury hotel group’s “connoisseurs”, and he’s responsible for the soundtrack for St. Regis hotels worldwide, reaching back to the New York-origin hotel’s jazz roots.
“It’s quite an organic relationship,” says the singer, who shot to fame with his 2002 album Pointless Nostalgic. As a travelling musician, he developed a relationship that turned into doing gigs when he once got waylaid in Bali (yes, it’s a tough life). “One thing led to another and we all got to know each other. They have been talking for a long time about reconnecting with jazz, because it’s part of their history.
“I said, I will get involved, but... I’m not really someone who does brand stuff, like holding a glass and going [he gestures like a host on a shopping channel]... it’s got to have some kind of connection to music, otherwise I feel like some kind of [expletive]. I am very bad at talking about things that people put into my mouth.”
The authentic connection came about when St. Regis got involved with New York’s Lincoln Centre and Wynton Marsalis, so it was like great, go straight to the source. They asked my about curating a playlist, and then it became ‘can you help launch it at different [hotels]’.”
Hence his presence in Dubai, to perform on a small stage in front of an intimate crowd of VIPs. He had no plan for the performance except to “get out there and play”. The result was again, a buzzing performance, full of non-stop chatter, clambering over and around the stage, audience interaction and Zayn Malik covers that left the crowd rather breathless. Here, Cullum tells us about playing for money, his upcoming album, how he puts together his weekly radio show, and the upcoming International Jazz Day at the White House.
You’re playing this gig as part of a hotel brand, and earlier, we saw you at a private show for a fashion store.
It’s funny we should talk about these kind of things, because [the 2008 show] was very much what you would call a corporate gig. They do come up occasionally. You kind of weigh up what the things you want to do are. You find that balance between that thing of doing things that kind of help keep your career afloat and life in general.
You see artists in general getting criticised — I just read Sting and JLO just did something for some oligarch.
Everybody. Everybody does it. And the one you think aren’t doing it, they’re doing it.
You’ve got to pay the bills.
I read recently, and it made me happy to read this, that Bjork doesn’t make much money on tour because she spends it all on the production — the people and the sound. I thought, thank God, there’s someone else who does that as well. You want it to be right, to be god and put on a great show. The modern music business is an interesting place.
You’re on the line-up for the International Jazz Day show at the White House on April 30.
It’s a day that celebrates jazz in America, as America’s classical music — as indeed it is and should be considered one of the great artistic things that was born really in America. Initially, I had no idea how big it was going to be — all I knew was that my name was in the mix. I’ve known about the possibility for about four months, and i wasn’t allowed to mention it until last night. If I think about it, I won’t sleep tonight. I’ve got to figure out what i am going to do.
How will you approach that?
When you are in a room with Aretha Franklin and Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, who wants to hear anyone else play, really? I think what I have realised over the years, I am not the greatest technician in the room, I am not the greatest singer in the room, it’s just about having something to say and communicate that is unique to you. That’s what I learned through jazz — personal expression is key.
Your last album, Interlude, was jazz covers; your previous one was your own songwriting. You’ve said you like the idea of alternating those two styles. So what’s next?
I am in yhe middle of it right now, it’s very much an album of my songs, personal, you could use that word. I don’t know what it’s connection to jazz is, it’s just an album of songs. I’ve written about 10-15 things, I still think I need to write a little bit more, but I’ve started to record now. It’s really exciting.
You’ve had a radio show on BBC Radio 2 every Tuesday for five years now. How does it come together?
I was naturally putting together radio shows before I was doing it because I am such a listener. Ihad a couple of hours in my hotel this morning before I had to do anything, and I spent that listening to music, which is more or less what I would do anyway. I found 12 tracks that I loved and thought they would be good for the radio show, so I put them into lists. They won’t be for shows probably for two months now. Then I will submit the playlists as such and my producer will help me put together a rough — script is the wrong word, because it doesn’t have the words I’m going to say — but she’ll do the donkey work of making sure it fits into an hour and all the facts are there.
I will either do it live on a Tuesday night when I am in town and drive the desk and hit the news and it’s great fun, it’s like doing a live gig. Or I’ll record it live where ever I am. [The next two weeks] I am doing live, but the following week I’ll be in Washington, and I’ll either go into NPR and do it there, or I’ll record it in my hotel room [he starts to ponder] or backstage and maybe Herbie Hancock is there, and I’ll run over and get him on the microphone.
Would you like to do more?
i would do more, but doing an hour’s show a week is a huge amount of work. At the moment, it complements my life as a musician because it means I am actively listening to music and meeting loads of great people. The album Interlude is a direct result of someone I met on the show [Benedic Lamdin]. We got on so well that we booked a day in the studio a week later and two days later, we had the album all done.
How do you find new music?
I get sent a lot of stuff, I keep an eye on blogs and music sites, check in with people I like. I listen to a lot of online radio stations from different parts of the world, Mixcloud and Soundcloud, stuff that has like three listens. It’s like crate digging but on the internet.
What makes you say yes to a track?
There’s no formula as such. You can normally tell in 30 seconds. The show has an identity now. It’s one of discovery and pushing gently at the comfort zones of what people expect at 7 o’clock on Radio 2. [It’s] also joining the dots between hip hop and electronic music and jazz and all the different genres and trying to see where jazz fits in. I ended the show last week with Nick Drake’s Riverman, which you wouldn’t say is a jazz song, but it’s in 5/4 time the chords are definitely... funky, there’s some crazy stuff going on there.
