Blog
Jun 11, 2011
Going Up to Jerusalem with Kurt Elling
In recent years, my greatest fantasy would have been to spend the day talking music with my favorite singer in the world, Kurt Elling, while taking him to my favorite spot in the world, the underground tunnel that runs along the western wall of...
Jun 07, 2011
Vocal CD of the Month – “Kurt Elling: The Gate”
Kurt Elling's "The Gate" is his most provocative, hippest and coolest recording to date Produced by the Grammy-winning Don Was, this nine-track set features the vocalist providing singing lessons (in terms of creative phrasing, astounding...
Jun 05, 2011
Kurt Elling: 21st Century Jazz Vocalist
Finding a CD featuring jazzy interpretations of King Crimson's 'Matte Kudasai', Joe Jackson's 'Stepping Out', and Stevie Wonder's 'Golden Lady', among others, should not, on the face of it, be too much to ask for However, with the recording...
Jun 01, 2011
Jazz vocalist Kurt Elling headlines Mercyhurst Independent Arts Fest
Grammy-winning vocalist Kurt Elling starts the Independent Arts Fest at Mercyhurst in style In an interview with Jazz Times writer Nate Chinen, Kurt Elling defined a jazz singer as, "somebody who devotes their life to an art form that demands a...
Jun 01, 2011
Kurt Elling: Winning Spins
During his 14-year recording career, vocalist Kurt Elling has received Grammy nominations for every CD he's released Of course, he didn't actually win for any of his first seven mostly original efforts But he finally collected a Best Jazz Vocal...
Apr 27, 2011
Kurt Elling: His own man, artistically speaking
Part of the reason that master musician Kurt Elling tends to hog the best-of magazine polls, Grammy dealings, and generally sweep up accolades as jazz' greatest living male vocalist has to do with what he is not Which is to say, unlike singers...
Apr 27, 2011
KEQ in Santa Barbara: Going from strength to strength
When the best place to see jazz hosts the best jazz there is to see, it can feel like a celestial convergence, a planetary alignment that's as rare and beautiful as the northern lights Kurt Elling came to the Lobero last week with a program...
Apr 22, 2011
Kurt Elling at the Soiled Dove Underground, Denver
Perhaps it's ironic: jazz wants to be free, yet boundaries abound Nowhere has a boundary been more touchy or controversial than the line between jazz and rock Miles Davis blurred it, trounced it, trod upon it, spat on it And, in some circles,...
Apr 17, 2011
Kurt Elling keeps it bittersweet
With the poise of a World War II-era crooner, the patois of a Beat poet and the searching gaze of seminary student, jazz vocalist Kurt Elling isn't likely to be confused for Mick Jagger any time soon But for Don Was, who produced "The Gate,"...
Apr 16, 2011
Kurt Elling: a jazz singer with a literary, collaborative bent
Before he won last year's jazz vocal album Grammy Award for "Dedicated to You: Kurt Elling Sings the Music of Coltrane and Hartman,†each of Elling's six previous albums had earned a nomination in that category Rather than feeling like...
Apr 13, 2011
Jazz Singer Kurt Elling Goes Pop Without Losing His Cool
Kurt Elling, the handsome and deeply talented singer, has taken his role as the generally acknowledged king of living jazz male vocalists proudly, and not lightly He might have, by now, dipped into breezier pop turf in search of lucre and mall...
Apr 07, 2011
Jazzed: Singer Kurt Elling wheels through the gate
In the personnel list on his latest album, The Gate (Concord Music), his credit reads: "Kurt Elling—Voice†It's an appropriate choice because Elling plays his voice the way an instrumentalist plays his ax His instrument is pretty...