Jamie Cullum Big Band rocks rainy Jazz a Vienne for new album live DVD

For this concert Cullum expanded his current touring band to the status of ‘big band’ with strings and extra horns – so that he could film the show for a Concert DVD to be released in conjunction with the new album, which will be released on Universal in the autumn.

For Cullum, this album is hugely important – his award-winning BBC Radio 2 show on Tuesday nights has ‘re-ignited’ his passion with, and his desire to play, more jazz – so he has been writing new and arranging old material which culminated in recording sessions with Nostalgia 77’s Benedic Lamdin. Even Marc Connor, Cullum's manager, described this as, “Jamie’s most jazz-based album yet.”

The decision to film the show was only taken two weeks ago and proved to be a massive challenge to arrange an additional 24 musicians. The venue, a Roman amphitheatre that holds around 7,500 is a fantastic setting and once the decision was taken to film a show from the current tour – was Cullum’s first choice. The weather in Vienne has been very unsettled and the previous night had seen quite heavy rain during Joe Satriani’s show.

Fortunately, although spitting during Thomas Dutronc’s set it didn’t actually rain and by the time Cullum took to the stage it had almost completely stopped. Dutronc (with special guest guitarist Angelo Debarre) was excellent playing a mixture of songs ‘Allonges’, ‘Charleston’, ‘J’aime Plus Paris’, ’Tiger Rag’ and ‘I’ll see you’, evoking memories of Django and Henri Salvador in his prime.

While a very large space the Theatre Antique is also quite intimate and suited Cullum’s presentation of his music. Always the showman, still jumping off the piano and leaping around the stage, much to the delight of the crowd, it was the more intimate moments during the ballads when you could see him hold the audience and take them with him on a song that showed his growing artistic maturity. The new songs are certainly far jazzier than before, the addition of a big band, ably led by saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist Tom Richards and featuring among others saxophonists Ben Castle and Tom Challenger and trombonist Barnaby Dickinson alongside his regular band of trumpeter Rory Simmons and drummer Brad Webb, who were superb throughout.

The older songs unsurprisingly got the most reaction ‘When I get Famous’, ‘Don’t Stop The Music’, ‘I’m All Over It’ and ‘These Are The Days’ turning into real anthems for him. The sight of most of the Theatre Antique jumping up and down together in unison at the climax of the show wearing their free red or blue rain-macs was a wonderful sight and contrasted with the total hush as he sung a solo version of ‘Gran Tourino’ with not a sound coming from the audience.

Tour manager Danny White, who has been with Cullum for more than 12 years and has seen virtually every show, told me he thinks he is better now than he has ever seen him – the popularity of the radio show and his busy touring schedule are attracting new fans and also existing jazz fans who perhaps have dismissed him in the past but have gained respect because of his obvious love of jazz and the eclectic playlist on his show.

The new album and Live DVD should be out in the autumn 2014 and promises to be extremely interesting.

– Tim Dickeson (story and photos)