Awards

Grammy Awards:

• Best Jazz Vocal Album: Secrets Are The Best Stories, featuring Danilo Pérez
• Best Jazz Vocal Album: Dedicated To You: Kurt Elling Sings the Music of Coltrane and Hartman

Grammy Nominations:

• Best Jazz Vocal Album: Secrets Are The Best Stories, featuring Danilo Pérez
• Best Jazz Vocal Album: The Questions
• Best Jazz Vocal Album: Upward Spiral, The Branford Marsalis Quartet with special guest Kurt Elling
• Best Jazz Vocal Album: 1619 Broadway – The Brill Building Project
• Best Jazz Vocal Album: The Gate
• Best Jazz Vocal Album: Dedicated To You
• Best Jazz Vocal Album: Nightmoves
• Best Jazz Vocal Album: Man In The Air
• Best Jazz Vocal Album: Flirting With Twilight
• Best Jazz Vocal Album: Live In Chicago
• Best Jazz Vocal Performance: This Time It’s Love
• Best Jazz Vocal Performance: The Messenger
• Best Jazz Vocal Performance: Close Your Eyes
• Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying a Vocalist:
  “Dedicated To You” from Dedicated To You
  (Arrangement by Laurence Hobgood)
• Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying a Vocalist:
  “Easy Living” from Flirting With Twilight
  (Arrangement by Kurt Elling and Laurence Hobgood)

DownBeat:

• Critics Poll: Male Vocalist of the Year – 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2018, 2019, 2021
• Critics Poll: Talent Deserving Wider Recognition – 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000
• Readers Poll: Male Vocalist of the Year – 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2018, 2019, 2020 (tie)

JazzTimes:

• Extended Critics’ Poll: Male Vocalist of the Year – 2018
• Readers’ Poll: Male Vocalist of the Year – 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2018
• Readers’ Poll: Best New Release – 2012: 1619 Broadway – The Brill Building Project

Jazz Journalists Association:

• Male Singer of the Year – 2000, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

JazzWeek:

• Record of the Year: The Gate – 2011
• Vocalist of the Year – 2006

Edison Jazz/World, The Netherlands:

• Edison Jazz Oeuvreprijs (Lifetime Achievement Award) – 2014
• Jazz Vocal: Kurt Elling, The Gate – 2011

ECHO Jazz Prize, Germany:

• International Ensemble of the Year: Branford Marsalis Quartet with special guest Kurt Elling, Upward Spiral – 2017
• International Male Singer of the Year: Kurt Elling, The Gate – 2012

Jazz FM Awards:

• International Jazz Artist of the Year – 2013

Académie du Jazz de Paris:

• Prix du Jazz Vocal: The Questions – 2018
• Prix Billie Holiday: Man In The Air – 2003
• Prix Billie Holiday: The Messenger – 1997

Blue Note Milano:

• Award of the Year – 2013

Scottish Jazz Awards:

• International category – 2012

LOTOS Jazz Festival, Poland:

• Aniol Jazzowy/Jazz Angel Artistic Prize – 2018

Silesian Jazz Festival, Poland:

• Jazz Ambassador – 2012