It's not so much that Nate James's mother sees her soul-singing son as a "big bundle of sweetness and light" as that he openly admits it in interviews. It's safe to assume, then, that if his career continues its upward jog, there will be none of the macho mythologising that figures in most male R&B stars' profiles. Mrs James's Mobo-nominated bundle seems happy to be Britsoul's boy next door, about as "street" as former Fame Academy winner David Sneddon, who co-wrote his airplay hit, The Message.

Accordingly, his Jazz Cafe show was about craftsmanship rather than muckiness - but some of that would have made all the difference. While James's snazzy funk makes it hard to believe he's from Ipswich, he's not what you'd call hot. This mattered, if only because he spent long minutes dueting with backing singer Natalie Williams, and if two people must mope at each other over a tune called Funky Love, the chemistry had better say Doherty and Moss, not Bedingfield and Bedingfield.

Apart from that, though, his virtues were numerous. You couldn't dislike his sunny sweetness as he glided through some intricate melodies, justifying comparisons to his hero, Maxwell (whose Sumthin' Sumthin' he sparklingly covered). He has a way of bending other people's songs to his own will: a feverish version of Stevie Wonder's Superstition sounded like a James original, and the ballad More Than Words, by Extreme, yielded real frustration. He was concise, too, only allowing his huge band to go off on an extended tangent once, during a stomping, urbanised The Message.

All terribly pleasant, but it was when he directed the audience to say hello in Japanese to a Tokyo TV crew filming the proceedings that everything became clear - with his "big-ass Afro" and good manners, he's the R&B James Blunt.