You needed no crystal ball to foresee that this particular night of John Hoare’s week-long residency would be a standing-room-only affair. The West Country-born trumpeter may not be a household name, but everyone is familiar with the ebullient young keyboard player who used to be a member of the band. Reunited with his old friends, Jamie Cullum turned in a characteristically gracious performance. There is no rock star egoism about him. For tonight, he was content to be just one of the boys.

I’m always puzzled by the antipathy directed at him from so many corners of the jazz world. Sure, there’s an undeniable Top of the Pops flavour to some of his work. On the other hand he makes no claim to be a living legend; he knows he is still learning his craft, and he always makes a point of sharing the limelight with lesser-known peers. How this makes him a piano-playing version of the Antichrist is beyond me.

Hoare’s group, the JH4, belongs very much in the unpretentious soul-jazz mould. Hoare’s playing is clipped and precise in a Chet Baker-ish sort of way, and although the musicians can deliver a tidy and conventional version of a standard such as Alone Together, they come into their own when the tempo is pushed up a notch and Charlie Stratford’s drums slip into a backbeat.

While the soloing may not dazzle, Hoare has an exceptionally sharp eye for material. Green Tea, taken from John Scofield’s album A Go Go, underlined the band’s affinity with the controlled funk of the cult act Medeski, Martin & Wood. The Argentine guitarist Luis D’Agostino added some grit in his guest slots.

Cullum, who spent part of the evening watching from a table near the bar, was in typically relaxed form. Black Coffee found him shifting from ballad mode to his trademark dance tempo, and he applied the same treatment to Duke Ellington’s Come Sunday, an odd but surprisingly effective choice.

Things grew even more unpredictable as the evening wore on. From Russia With Love is not a ballad you normally expect to hear in this venue. Cullum’s yearning vocals kept kitsch at bay nonetheless. The quiet opening section of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Dindi was beautifully handled. At the close, the JH4 dipped into the Stevie Wonder songbook on Golden Lady. Wonder’s songs aren’t covered often enough by jazz musicians. If Cullum ever goes down the tribute-album path, the Motown giant would be an enticing place to start.

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