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December 31, 2011
Kurt Elling in 2011: It was a very good year
It's been a very good year for Kurt Elling -- a very good year indeed! The Gate, Kurt's ninth album and the third on the Concord label, debuted in February to great acclaim and was #1 on the JazzWeek Jazz Chart for nine weeks. JazzWeek later declared The Gate its 2011 Record of the Year. Producer Don Was (Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and Bonnie Raitt) brought his exquisite sensibility, expertise, and great love of music into the studio to help make The Gate a truly outstanding album. As with all of Kurt's recordings, The Gate received the Grammy nomination for Best Vocal Jazz Album. The 54th Grammy Awards will be announced on February 12, 2012. The Gate also won the prestigious 2011 Edison Jazz/World Award for Vocal Jazz. The Edison, considered the Dutch Grammy, is one of the oldest music awards in the world. Only the Grammy is older by one year. Prizes are awarded to artists whose recordings over the last year are considered by the Edison professional jury to be the best achievement in their genre. For the twelfth year in a row Kurt was named Male Vocalist of the Year in the DownBeat Critics Poll, and he got his sixth win in the DownBeat Readers Poll. JazzTimes readers also agreed, voting Kurt as the Male Vocalist of the Year in the JazzTimes Readers' Poll. It was his seventh win. The Jazz Journalists Association also tapped Kurt as Male Singer of the Year for the seventh time. In September, the Urban League Club of Chicago inducted Kurt and the Ravinia Festival's Welz Kauffman as Distinguished Musicians, honoring their contributions to the arts and the community. Kurt performed in 138 shows in 74 cities in 24 countries in 2011. Most of those dates were with the Kurt Elling Quintet -- Kurt's long-time collaborator and musical director Laurence Hobgood on piano, Harish Raghavan (January-June) and then Clark Sommers on bass, Ulysses Owens on drums, and featuring Chicago's own John McLean on guitar. Kurt also performed with an amazing number of guest artists and musical collaborators during the year:
In addition to The Gate, Kurt was also featured on two other albums in 2011. Note of Hope, a celebration of Woody Guthrie, based on the words and writings of the great American master, features Grammy-winning bassist Rob Wasserman's collaborations with Jackson Browne, Ani DiFranco, Kurt, Michael Franti, Nellie McKay, Tom Morello, Van Dyke Parks, Madeleine Peyroux, Lou Reed, Pete Seeger, Studs Terkel, Tony Trischka, and Chris Whitley. Accompanied by Laurence Hobgood, Rob Wasserman, and Ulysses Owens, Kurt's funky and inspired version of Guthrie's "Peace Pin Boogie" on Note of Hope is a tongue-in-cheek look at the rewards of being politically correct. What Is The Beautiful?, from the Claudia Quintet +1, features Kurt Elling and Theo Bleckmann on vocals. One hundred years after poet Kenneth Patchen's birth, composer/drummer John Hollenbeck and The Claudia Quintet +1 celebrate Patchen in this hour-long tribute, which reimagines Patchen’s texts in a unique musical setting. And so as another year draws to a close, we welcome another new beginning, full of promise and hope. As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, "And now let us believe in the new year that is given us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been." Kurt promises all new notes in the new year!
November 30, 2011
2011 GRAMMY Nomination for "The Gate"!
 On November 30 when the 54th annual Grammy nominations were announced in Los Angeles, renowned jazz vocalist Kurt Elling was honored with his ninth Grammy nomination for The Gate in the Best Jazz Vocal category. Every one of Kurt's albums has been Grammy nominated. Nine albums, eleven nominations in all -- that's excellence! The New York Times is one of numerous publications to declare that Kurt Elling is the "standout male vocalist of our time," and The Gate, Elling's follow-up to his Grammy-winning Dedicated to You, is among his strongest albums—and perhaps the finest of his career. Produced by Don Was (Rolling Stones, Bonnie Raitt, Bob Dylan), The Gate is a musical collection in which boundaries cease to exist. The Gate points Elling in a new and satisfyingly emotional direction. He has somehow found a way to make a deeply personal statement out of the music of King Crimson, Joe Jackson, Stevie Wonder and the Beatles—in addition to providing a new and vibrant understanding of Miles Davis, Bill Evans and Herbie Hancock. The Gate features longtime associate Laurence Hobgood on piano, Bob Mintzer on sax, John McLean on guitar, John Patitucci on bass, and two drummers, Terreon Gulley and Kobie Watkins—in addition to percussionist Lenny Castro. The Gate closes with a song that represents Elling's continued dedication to exploring jazz's past and blazing a trail for its future. Composed by the late Don Grolnick, “Nighttown, Lady Bright” features spoken words written by Duke Ellington and additional lyrics by Elling, who wished to close the album with a cinematic depiction of a jazz musician’s life. Said The Washington Post, "Since the mid-1990s, no singer in jazz has been as daring, dynamic or interesting as Kurt Elling. With his soaring vocal flights, his edgy lyrics and sense of being on a musical mission, he has come to embody the creative spirit in jazz." That spirit is in rich evidence on The Gate—and a musical feast awaits those who pass through. The Grammy Awards ceremony will be held February 12th at the Staples Center in Los Angeles and broadcast on CBS. As always, bountiful and heartfelt congratulations, Kurt!
October 28, 2011
Kurt Elling & The Gate garners the 2011 Edison award for Vocal Jazz
The prestigious 2011 Edison award for Vocal Jazz has been awarded to Kurt Elling for The Gate. The Edison is considered the Dutch Grammy. The Edison is one of the oldest music awards in the world. Only the Grammy is older by one year. The first Edison was awarded in 1960. Named in tribute to Thomas Alva Edison, there are three award categories: Edison Jazz/World, Edison Pop, and Edison Klassiek (Classical), each with its own professional jury. Prizes are awarded to artists whose recordings over the last year are considered by the jury to be the best achievement in their genre. In the Vocal Jazz category, this year's award goes to Kurt's album The Gate. According to the jury, The Gate has been tastefully produced by Don Was and shows impressive craftsmanship. Outstanding! There are only four annual Edison jazz awards, plus one for best DVD and one for Special Historical Edition. The list of this year's jazz winners is here (in Dutch). The formal awards ceremony will take place on Wednesday, November 16, 2011, at the Philips Concert Hall in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Many congratulations to Kurt and everyone involved in making The Gate!
October 26, 2011
DownBeat's Male Vocalist of the Year for 2011!
Once again, Kurt Elling has been named Male Vocalist of the Year in the DownBeat Critics Poll and in its Readers Poll. It's a clean sweep! The 76th Annual Readers Poll results were just announced and will be featured in the December 2011 issue of DownBeat. Critics Poll results were announced earlier. This is the sixth year Kurt has topped the DownBeat Readers Poll, winning in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, and now 2011. He's won the top spot in the Critics Poll twelve years in a row, ever since 2000. As always, hearty congratulations, Kurt!
October 21, 2011
Kurt Elling with the Klüvers Big Band
Kurt Elling hosts the Klüvers Big Band from Denmark on their first visit to the United States. They're performing together in Chicago, New York, Washington, DC, and Boston from October 21 - November 2.
Kurt says, I am very happy to have the opportunity to host the Klüvers Big Band on their maiden voyage to the US. I anticipate a lot of joy in our time together, and look forward to listening to the band interact with Laurence and the rest of my cats, who will make up the rhythm section for the tour. We'll be doing large band arrangements of things from The Gate and from Dedicated To You, in addition to customized arrangements created and compiled over several years of my doing big band dates. Kurt toured Scandinavia with Klüvers in 2004, 2007, and again in a sold-out tour in January 2011. They also performed together at this year's North Sea Jazz festival in July. This is the Klüvers Big Band's first trip to the United States and is made possible in part by the patronage of HRH Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark. The Band is based in Århus, Denmark. They play two nights at the Green Mill in Chicago, October 21-22, and then a six-night residency at Birdland October 25-30, playing two sets each night. At Birdland, the Kurt Elling Quartet and the Klüvers Big Band will be joined by stellar special guests:
Then they travel to Washington, DC for two shows at Blues Alley on November 1, and wind up in Boston at the historic Wilbur Theatre on November 2, which is also Kurt's birthday.
October 11, 2011
Kurt Elling gives voice to Kenneth Patchen's poetry on "What Is The Beautiful?"
"Soon it will/Be showtime again," recites Kurt Elling at the outset of The Claudia Quintet's sixth CD, What Is The Beautiful? "Somebody will paint beautiful faces all over the sky." Hollenbeck immediately thought of Kurt Elling to give voice to these poems -- wholly unaware that Elling is something of a Patchen aficionado. "Kurt is a scholar with this stuff," Hollenbeck says. "He knew Patchen and knew exactly what to do. He's amazing." On his own recordings, Patchen recites his work in a gruff monotone; Elling, on the other hand, inhabits these poems as an actor would a role. On "Showtime," he welcomes listeners with the bold enunciation of a television emcee. He lurches through "Opening the Window" with an intoxicated stagger, and he recounts the menacing absurdities of the surreal "Job" with dueling voices: his own and a blue-collar Chicago accent, transforming the piece into a duet of narrator and character. Listen to Kurt's performance of "Job", renamed from Patchen's poem, "In Order To" (perfect for these times of high unemployment). And order your copy of What Is The Beautiful? today.
September 30, 2011
Union League Club of Chicago honors Distinguished Musician Kurt Elling
On September 30, Kurt Elling and pianist and Ravinia Festival President/CEO Welz Kauffman were inducted as Distinguished Musicians by the Union League Club of Chicago, America's #1 City Club. The Union League Club of Chicago established its Distinguished Artists program in 1997. The purpose of the program is to honor select Chicago-area artists for their contributions to both the visual arts and the community. In 2002, the Club extended the program to include authors and musicians. Internationally known, the artists who have been inducted into the program choose to make Chicago their home and continue to contribute to the cultural well-being and world-class status of the community. This year's honorees join the ranks of prior recipients, including Nicole Cabell, Augusta Read Thomas, Nancy Gustafson, Ramsey Lewis, Rachel Barton Pine, Samuel Ramey, James Palermo, and Josephine Lee. As the Chicago Sun-Times reported, the evening "featured performances by the Chicago's Children’s Choir, Lincoln Trio and Ravinia Jazz Scholars — plus the world premiere of a Ramsey Lewis piano solo, played by Kauffman, and the Ravinia head honcho accompanying Elling in Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue." Many congratulations to these two Distinguished Musicians who's contributed so much to Chicago -- Kurt Elling and Welz Kauffman! |
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