Jamie Cullum 'The Pursuit' album

Verve Records is very excited to announce the release of Jamie Cullum's first solo record in four years. The record is called The Pursuit and is being released November 9th, 2009. It's Cullum's fifth record in a genre-defying career that has entertained an ever-growing fanbase across the globe since his first Verve record was released in 2002. The title of the record is taken from Nancy Mitford's classic novel, The Pursuit of Love, and the songs on it are wonderfully eclectic as always, mixing modern influences with his love of jazz and timeless standards. No one can move from Cole Porter to Rhianna to Aphex Twin as boldly and deftly as Cullum does on The Pursuit.

The making of The Pursuit was a marathon not a sprint. Having decided to take time off after two years touring 2005's Catching Tales and the juggernaut of praise and press that followed the previous album, 2003's Twentysomething, Cullum turned to other projects. "I took a whole year off," he says, "I played in other people's bands and worked with other artists, I DJ'd, made dance music with my brother and traveled." During this time he also built his own studio and earned himself a Golden Globe nomination for his co-write with Clint Eastwood of the title song for the film Gran Torino.

All the songs on The Pursuit began life at his studio as well as in his kitchen before recording moved to Los Angeles for three months over the summer of 2008. While work there with producer and long-time associate Greg Wells proved productive, some of the work from the kitchen made it to the final product. Recording in LA meant changing the techniques and routines Cullum had developed on his previous records. "I didn't want to make this album with my old band or my old producer," he says, "I needed to frighten myself." While many of the songs were put together by Wells and Cullum in the studio, a selection of stellar talent contributed their musicianship. Members of Beck's band joined the sessions while the horn section that played on Michael Jackson's Thriller also appear. "Getting out of your comfort zone is such a cliché for your third or fourth album," he says sincerely, "But, you know, it really worked."

Ten years on from his first self-funded release, Heard It All Before, Cullum is still pursuing new sounds and new ideas in his music. "We've had a lot of musicians who've arrived fully formed. When I made my first record it was a stab in the dark, something to sell at my wedding gigs."

"I think I've come close to fully realizing what I should be with this record. I didn't know who I wanted to be when I was 19," he says.

Look for Cullum to tour relentlessly after the album is released.

Jamie Cullum biography
"Always either on a peak of happiness or drowning in black waters of despair they loved or they loathed, they lived in a world of superlatives."
Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit Of Love

Jamie Cullum is an artist deserving of superlatives but more complex than a simple set of adjectives can depict. If you know him as "just" a jazz musician or from his strikingly creative way with cover versions (among them, Radiohead's 'High & Dry' and Pharrell's 'Frontin') you're just familiar with the tip of the iceberg.

'The Pursuit', his fifth album and first new solo record in four years, is summed up by its title, taken from Nancy Mitford's classic novel, The Pursuit Of Love. "In life, we pursue everything. Life is one long pursuit," says Jamie and the album is just such a pursuit - a combination of his eclectic music tastes and enduring love of Jazz and its timeless standards.

It is a record that mixes his heritage with a thrilling selection of modern influences. Describing its sound he moves from Cole Porter to Rhianna to Aphex Twin in the same sentence. Jamie is a performer capable of delivering constant surprises with a talent elastic enough to evince a four-to-the-floor acoustic Ibiza song on the same record as a lushly recorded Jazz standard.

The making of 'The Pursuit' was a marathon not a sprint. Having decided to take time off after two years touring 2005's 'Catching Tales' and the juggernaut of praise and press that followed the previous album 2003's 'Twentysomething', Jamie turned to other projects. "I took a whole year off," he says, "I played in other people's bands and worked with other artists, I Dj'd, made dance music with my brother and travelled." He also found time to build his own studio, Terrified Studios, in London's Shepherd's Bush - "I call it that because I am so unknowledgeable about technology that I'm usually terrified when I'm in there," laughs Jamie.

All the songs on 'The Pursuit' began life at Terrified Studios and in Jamie's kitchen before recording moved to Los Angeles for three months over the summer of 2008. While work there with producer and long-time associate Greg Wells proved productive, some of the work from Jamie's kitchen made it to the final product. "We realised there were some things we couldn't recreate in any studio," Jamie reveals, "There's a Rhodes solo on a song called "We Run Things" which I played on two different organs in LA but in the end we used the performance I recorded in my little kitchen in London!"

Recording in LA meant changing the techniques and routines Jamie had developed on his previous records. "I didn't want to make this album with my old band or my old producer," he says, "I needed to frighten myself." While many of the songs were put together by Greg and Jamie in the studio, a selection of stellar talent contributed their musicianship. Members of Beck's band joined the sessions while the horn section that featured on Michael Jackson's Thriller also appear. "Getting out of your comfort zone is such a cliché for your third or fourth album," Jamie says sincerely, "But, you know, it really worked."

By the autumn of 2008, Jamie had a finished album and was ready to present it to his record company when the utter oddness of his career intervened. Clint Eastwood came calling again. The pair had connected through Clint's son Kyle, a fellow Jazz musician and Jamie ended up contributing to the Clint composed soundtrack to John Cusack's 2007 film Grace Is Gone. Now he was back with another assignment.

"He asked me to play at the Monterey Jazz Festival. He loved the performance and after the gig, he threw the script of Gran Torino at me and said, 'I want you to write music for this'." Among his many other skills, Jamie Cullum does a mean impression of Clint Eastwood. Jamie ended up recording the song at Clint's house and the film was re-cut around it with a score based on its motif. It's the kind of odd couple you usually only find in the movies but Clint and Cullum have ended up friends. "We hung out talking about girls and drinking beer," Jamie grins.

Gran Torino (the song) with music by Clint Eastwood and Jamie and lyrics by Jamie alone, was nominated for a Golden Globe. Jamie found himself involved in a whirlwind of interviews and press appearances to promote the film. All the time, he was collecting ideas and inspiration for new songs. It seemed like the record might not be finished after all.

"I had more songs and new experiences to draw upon," says Jamie, "I'd been doing the Rhianna cover and thought, actually I really want this on my album." Covers have always been part of Jamie's DNA as a Jazz musician but the art of selecting contemporary songs has become ever more difficult as every girl band and their dog in a handbag is doing them now. After covering Rhianna's all conquering uber-single "Umbrella" for some time, it's ubiquity led Jamie to choose another of the r'n'b poppet's tunes - "Please Don't Stop The Music". His striking version was inspired by his love of the "sexy lyric" and retools the original in a brilliant way.

"I wanted to reference more of my contemporary musical influences," says Jamie. While his crate-digging, band-discovering love of music has been present all along, The Pursuit is the first record where he has allowed these impulses full reign. "People who have seen me play live and read things I've written will already know that I've got a very eclectic taste," he says, "But the average person will just think of "What A Difference A Day Makes". I've never had a problem with that though. Singing a song like that and doing it well is one of the hardest things you can do."

Ten years on from his first self-funded release, Heard It All Before, Jamie is still (here's that theme again) pursuing new sounds and new ideas in his music. "We've had a lot of musicians who've arrived fully formed recently like Alex Turner or Jamie T. They knew what they wanted to sound like and said it straight away. When I made my first record it was a stab in the dark, something to sell at my wedding gigs."

"I think I've come close to fully realising what I should be with this record. I didn't know who I wanted to be when I was 19," he continues. Growing older has even made him question whether he should play his early hit, Twentysomething, anymore. "There's a lyric in the song that says, 'I'm a twenty something, leave me alone,' and I'm not going to be soon," he reveals. Jamie's (whisper it) 30 this year. It still may get an outing though: "It might be a great tour gimmick to change the lyric," he ponders.

Though he says he lived his "twenties to the fullest", in recent years the up-and-downs of his personal and professional life have fuelled an even more powerful creative drive. His personal happiness (exhaustively and often inaccurately documented by the tabloids) is at the heart of one of the album's most important songs - 'Love Ain't Gonna Let You Down'. "I've never written a love song that didn't have a joke in it before," Jamie admits, "The only pure love songs I'd sung before that were by George Gershwin."

'Love Ain't Gonna Let You Down' is also the song that ties up the album's over-arching theme in the lyric "the pursuit of love consumes us all". But for Jamie, the love he documents is not just the romantic one that obsesses the red tops but a love of music that shines out from every track. The Pursuit is an album that starts with a track featuring the Count Basie Orchestra recorded live at Tony Bennett's studio in New York and ends with a dance track and a jazz standard combined with trip-hop beats.

Despite possessing a talent that has seen him pursued for collaborations by Carole King, Burt Baccarach and Clint Eastwood as well as beat-boxer extraordinare Killa Kella and hip-hop big hitter Pharrell, Jamie is still far more interested in writing songs than seeking acclaim. "When you concentrate on making music, the whole point is that you never stop and are always trying to move on. Unless you're P-Diddy I guess," Jamie laughs. "The only thing I have to live up to is making an album that I'm proud of." On the strength of this astounding record, that's yet another pursuit he's succeeded in.

The Pursuit: track by track
Just One Of Those Things
"This song is plainly and brilliantly about a one night stand. It's an old Cole Porter song but I've written a new intro for it. I wrote the solo piano and vocal part at the beginning which is about waking up and wondering who the hell you're in bed next to. It's quite a ballsy move to rewrite a bit of Cole Porter and I'm certain there'll be Jazz critics who'll want to kill me."

"The song was recorded live onstage with the Count Basie Orchestra in New Jersey. We had lines running down the road to Tony Bennett's studio. The arrangement itself was done by Frank Foster who worked with Count Basie. He's in his mid-eighties now. I called him up and two days later this incredible arrangement arrived."

I'm All Over It
"I wanted to write a short, snappy pop song in the style of '70s Elton John with a bit of Ben Folds thrown in. I'd split up with someone and met the love of my life so this is a breakup song about feeling heartbroken then having that moment where the switch flips and you realise you're fine. It's an example of me writing lyrics that appear to make sense but don't necessarily when you try and pick them apart. It's the snappiest, poppiest song I've ever done and it was written in 90 minutes." The song features string arrangements by Paul Buckmaster.

Wheels
"I was driving along one day in January when the Credit Crunch was just starting to bite and the weather was terrible. This line came to me: "The wheels are falling off the world." I wrote it down and didn't really do anything with it. Then a friend brought his four-year-old over to mine and he was showing me an exercise they teach you when you first learn to play piano - rolling your knuckles over the black notes. Suddenly it all connected in my head. This song uses the same notes and construction that that four-year-old showed me! It's about the clarity you get when you're drunk and out on the town. It's about trying to get that back when you're sober."

If I Ruled The World
"I wasn't familiar with the musical this song comes from (Pickwick) and lots of people will remember the Harry Secombe version but I'd only ever heard Tony Bennett's take on it. For me, it's all about the lyric. It's incredible like a Beatles lyric or a Paul Simon lyric. I wanted to make the music sound like a funeral. It's a positive song lyrically but I wanted to turn it on its head. It's got a really spacey, Portishead style production."

You And Me Are Gone
"This is a stream of consciousness song. I was with my band in the studio and I wrote the lyrics as we were playing. Then I went to LA and was in Sunset Sounds, the studio where they recorded Led Zeppelin I, II and III when the engineer said, 'You know what else was recorded here? The Jungle Book!' Right then I knew how I wanted the song to sound. We channelled that Louis Prima, Jungle Book feel into it. It's got a double meaning - you and me are gone and so in love and you and me are finished."

Love Ain't Gonna Let You Down
"It's a straight up love song and probably the first I've written that doesn't include a joke. I think it could really last. It's a song that people will relate to if they've ever fallen in love and wanted to say to that person: 'This is not going to go wrong, this is it.' It's almost a plea to yourself not to mess things up."

Please Don't Stop The Music
"There's a real science to choosing covers. Back when I did 'High And Dry' and 'Frontin' it wasn't as common. But doing covers has always been part of my DNA as a Jazz musician. Often I'll think of a tune to do and someone else will get there first. I was going to do 'Every Heartbeat' by Robyn but Girls Aloud did it for Radio One! I thought someone is really smart. I did 'Umbrella' the day after it was released but soon enough, everyone was doing it. With 'Please Don't Stop The Music' it was the lyric that grabbed me. It is such a sexy lyric. And I was able to transform the song into something totally new sounding."

Mixtape
"I've been introducing it onstage as a disco song about the death of the music industry. It's a love song for the music geek in me. The ultimate romantic act back-in-the-day used to be making a mixtape for a girl. I decided the ultimate modern romantic act would be to get your tape player down from the attic and go out and find a Maxell C90 and record a mixtape. It's even more romantic now because of the technological rewind you have to do."

I Think, I Love
"Now this one is a love song with a joke in it. It's about how indecisive men can be, about that moment when you just can't work out your feelings. It was recorded on an upright piano with the practice pedal down so to start with it sounds really muffled. For half the track it seems like the cheapest thing you've ever heard but then the orchestra comes in. It's written in a really old-fashioned Cole Porter style but with lyrics that make it seriously contemporary."

We Run Things
"I wrote this with my neighbour KG - he's a hip-hop producer and worked on a lot of the early All Saints tracks - and my brother. It's a breakbeat song. We wrote it in one afternoon round KG's house. It's a very dark lyric. Essentially, it's a "don't fuck with me, don't fuck with things" sort of song."

Not While I'm Around
"This is a song from Sweeney Todd which I have always loved. I took the drum groove from 'Teardrop' by Massive Attack and played a Stephen Sondheim song over the top!"

Music Is Through
"A couple of years ago, I started working on a dance thing with my brother. We wrote six loosely written songs to play over house beats with him on bass and me playing keys and singing over them. This is something we wrote for that project which I worked on to make it fit with my sound. It's played on and upright piano and a stand-up bass. It's a four-to-the-floor House track, almost an acoustic Ibiza type song."

The Pursuit will be released by Decca/Terrified Recordings on November 9th 2009.

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Jamie Cullum - The Pursuit