With a title inspired by Nancy Mitford’s classic novel The Pursuit of Love, Jamie Cullum’s fifth album The Pursuit combines the musician’s unwavering love of jazz and its enduring standards with a distinct variety of contemporary influences. From Cole Porter to Rihanna covers – as well as some highly compelling original tracks – this multifarious artist manages to combine very disparate elements seamlessly, with what has been described as ‘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 overriding ethos of the new album is about the pursuit, not only of love, but of everything. ‘In life, we pursue everything. Life is one long pursuit,’ says Cullum.

Much of the album’s engaging diversity implicitly reflects Cullum’s wild and stirring encounters during a brief production hiatus. ‘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.’ It was also in this year that Cullum got engaged to his supermodel partner, Sophie Dahl (whose favourite book happens to be The Pursuit of Love), celebrated his 30th birthday with a gig at the Hollywood Bowl, and engaged in numerous unprecedented musical relationships.

Read more in the February 2010 issue of CLASSICFEEL