Blog
Sep 07, 2023
Swing Time
“First of all, the groove has got to be the thing,” might be a surprising statement coming from a singer who has spent nearly his entire career within the jazz orbit But Kurt Elling very much wants to emphasize that SuperBlue, his ongoing...
Mar 15, 2021
Kurt Elling ’89 Wins Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Album
Long recognized as one of the top jazz vocalists of our time, Elling won his second Grammy Award for his album Secrets are the Best Stories Gustavus Adolphus College alumnus Kurt Elling ’89 won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album at...
Feb 24, 2021
Jazz beats the virus online
Chicago presenters of jazz and new music, and journalists from Madrid to the Bay Area, vocalist Kurt Elling, trumpeter Orbert Davis and pianist Lafayette Gilchrist discussed how they’ve transcended coronavirus-restrictions on live...
Dec 01, 2020
Kurt Elling’s Grammy nomination for Secrets Are The Best Stories
The 63rd Grammy Award nominations were announced last night via a live stream across social media Included in the shortlist for the Best Jazz Vocal Album category was Kurt Elling’s first album for Edition Records, the sublime Secrets Are The...
Nov 27, 2020
#6: Secrets Are The Best Stories on Jazzwise’s Top 20 Jazz Albums of 2020
The ultimate guide to the year's best new jazz albums as voted for by Jazzwise's peerless panel of reviewers – including the complete original Jazzwise reviews Back in March as lockdown was imposed, things looked bleak But jazz listens,...
Nov 06, 2020
Somewhere: Capital connection finds Elling and SNJO on song
A connection that was made in Edinburgh back in the 1980s flourishes in spectacular style on the new video from the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra Released to coincide with Remembrance Sunday this weekend, Somewhere – the showstopping...
Oct 22, 2020
Jazz, Hope, and Perverse Modernism
The great jazz singer Kurt Elling gave us a real sign of hope in a difficult year on August 30, when he presented a live-streamed concert from the Green Mill, Chicago's legendary jazz club "We got a gig, dad," Elling said as he took the stage...
Oct 12, 2020
Jazz singer Kurt Elling moves back home to Chicago: ‘It was always a question of when was going to be right’
Twelve years ago, jazz singer Kurt Elling left Chicago for New York Three months ago, he returned The move, says Elling, was prompted not by the pandemic, which has devastated New York, but by a longstanding desire to move back to the...
Oct 11, 2020
Kurt Elling’s 25th Anniversary Virtual Tour: Steppin’ Out While Stayin’ In
If all was right with the world, jazz vocalist Kurt Elling would be celebrating the 25th anniversary of Close Your Eyes — his first album on the Blue Note label — before a packed house at the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, the legendary club...
Oct 09, 2020
Kurt Elling Celebrates 25 Years in Jazz with “Virtual Tour”
Vocalist Kurt Elling rocketed to jazz stardom with the 1995 release of his debut album, Close Your Eyes, on Blue Note Records Twenty-five years later, Elling boasts a remarkable and accomplished career in jazz, and he celebrates it in October...
Jul 05, 2020
Secrets Are The Best Stories review: A career high point for Kurt Elling
I've been under the spell of Elling since I first heard him – there's such rich calmness, such beautifully measured passion in his voice But it's also about the things he says and the way he goes about putting music to words; that's right...
May 20, 2020
Review: Kurt Elling and Danilo Pérez Prove ‘Secrets Are the Best Stories’
Kurt Elling's collaboration with pianist Danilo Pérez features impressionistic and daring playing and poetic lyrics, making it one of the highlights of a brilliant jazz vocal career On 2018's The Questions, vocalist Kurt Elling used a...