All about this artist
Biography:
Born 20 August 1979, Rochford, Essex, England. Cullum began playing piano as a child, crediting his older brother, Ben, later to become a session musician, as being a primary influence. By his mid-teenage years, he had grown weary of the current pop scene and through the medium of his parents' record collection began paying attention to jazz.
Meanwhile, his attention was being drawn towards singers such as Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra. Determined first on a career in film, Cullum studied the subject at Reading University but was already working nights as a singer-pianist.
His interest in jazz piano grew and he has expressed his admiration for musicians such as Bill Evans, Erroll Garner, Herbie Hancock and Thelonious Monk. Not surprisingly, the two strands, superior popular song and piano jazz, came together in his playing and singing.
He also developed an appreciation of the work of Harry Connick Jnr. and, later, Diana Krall. In the wake of the attention being granted pop jazz crossover singers such as Krall, Norah Jones and Jane Monheit, Cullum began attracting audiences and critics alike in the UK.
He recorded a debut album with his trio and sold copies of the self-pressed CD after shows. His 2002 debut for the Candid Records label, Pointless Nostalgic, which featured leading UK-based jazz instrumentalists including Dave O'Higgins, Matt Wates and Ben Castle, received a great deal of airplay on BBC Radio 2, and his star rose rapidly.
Within a year of his recording debut he was offered a lucrative contract with major jazz label Verve Records, and heavy promotion was planned for a break into the US market. Produced by Stewart Levine, Twenty Some-Thing (2003) confirmed Cullum's star status, becoming the first album by a UK jazz artist to achieve platinum sales (over 300,000 copies).
The success was repeated by Catching Tales (2005), on which Levine and Cullum joined forces once more and Dan "The Automator" Nakamura added additional production touches. Coincident with his burgeoning career as a jazz singer, Cullum continued to play organ and synthesizer with the rock group, Taxi.
He customarily works his jazz gigs with a trio, regularly completed by Sebastiaan De Krom on drums and Geoff Gascoyne, having first encountered the latter at Reading where the bass player was a member of the Pendulum Big Band. The trio was heard to good effect on the download only release Live At Ronnie Scott's (2006).
Cullum has an attractive singing voice, allied to an appealing stage manner and a well-chosen repertoire.
