Month: May 2006

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

(started this ages ago, and just found it in the blog’s back-end, which has a better memory than me, being open-source and not sleep-deprived).

Like many new parents, we don’t get out much (but the fortnightly babysitter-enabled date nights are definitely promising), but when we saw that ridiculously talented floppy-haired young English jazz man Jamie Cullum was coming to Santa Fe, we snaffled up a couple of tickets.

Jamie’s huge in England, but fortunately not so well known here, so he was playing in the small and funky open-air theatre, the Paolo Soleri. The evening came round, and with Memorial Day weekend and all, no one could be found to watch Finn. So she came too – Santa Fe is supremely kid friendly, and no-one batted an eye as we walked in with her in the Baby Bjorn.

It was a great show – Jamie has a great voice, some hot piano chops and a likeable way about him, and soon we were all very happy (and Finn was asleep). Depending on how you look at it, he’s either an MOR crooner and sell-out who pretends to be a jazz musician but is actually after the suburban audience, or he’s the very model of a modern relevant jazz dude, throwing in Doves and Radiohead covers with the standards.

I tend more towards the latter view, and he certainly gave us a good night – it was his last show before heading off on holiday, and the band had an end-of-term feel about them.

The sun set over the Indian School, Jamie said his goodbyes, and I was left wondering what the hell a guy from London made of the whole thing. He was complimentary about the weather and the location, and he certainly liked it more than Phoenix the night before (which wouldn’t be hard), but as he headed off for Hawaii, it just brought home to me how far from home I am here in my new home.

Another couple of audience members have posted their reviews of the show on Jamie’s site (complete with the set list – nice idea, by the way, for any musician’s site)