Blog
Mar 08, 2019
Kurt Elling Goes ‘Big’ in new Radio Drama: The Big Blind Debuts at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater
One of the most admirable qualities of true artists is a willingness to push the envelope beyond their comfort zone in tackling new projects Grammy-nominated singer and perennial poll-winner Kurt Elling has done precisely that with The Big...
Feb 27, 2019
Kurt Elling presents “The Big Blind: A Jazz Radio Drama”
It is now post time The Big Blind is a highly ambitious project by the veteran, Grammy-winning jazz singer Kurt Elling and co-writer, Grammy-nom Phil Galdston It's a very unusual form, not staged like a conventional play or musical comedy, but...
Feb 25, 2019
Kurt Elling Readies The Big Blind for NYC Premiere
The inspiration for Kurt Elling's radio play The Big Blind – co-written with Phil Galdston and premiering at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York on Mar 1 and 2 – came from a very special place: the Green Mill, a longtime jazz club outside...
Jan 24, 2019
Review: Kurt Elling Sings The Heroes, with special guests James Morrison & Troy Roberts, at Birdland
Kurt Elling's incredible talent and his impressive drive to develop his art are of the very same quality as many of the performers he paid tribute to in his show: Frank Sinatra; Oscar Brown, Jr; Eddie Jefferson Elling has a knack for digging up...
Dec 14, 2018
Grammy Award-winning jazz vocalist Kurt Elling makes his Berkeley debut
As one of the most celebrated jazz singers of his generation, Kurt Elling, 51, spent a long time as a solitary figure without any company in the spotlight These days however, he's not looking quite so lonely When the Grammy Award-winning...
Dec 13, 2018
Vocal stalwart Kurt Elling, a Chicago music mainstay, talks politics and that Obama plant
Important update on jazz singer Kurt Elling: The plant that Barack Obama gave him as a housewarming gift, before he became a US Senator in 2005, is doing well "It's up to my shoulders at this point," says Elling, who bought the...
Aug 15, 2018
Concert Review: Kurt Elling at the Shalin Liu Performance Center
Kurt Elling's level of popular recognition is like that of a number of major jazz musicians They are respected within the jazz world, and their fame has reached into other corners of the culture But they remain marginal Do my Arts Fuse readers...
Aug 10, 2018
Kurt Elling Blindfold Test at 2018 North Sea Jazz Festival
Kurt Elling's new album, The Questions (OKeh), is more evidence of his stature as one of the top vocalists in jazz During Elling's performance at this summer's North Sea Jazz Festival, he won over the audience with his mastery of vocalese and...
Jul 16, 2018
Review: Kurt Elling Quintet @ Edinburgh Jazz Festival
Though his style and appearance is as understated as Not Flash, Just Gordon (a long walk and a slow drawl with the minimum of chit-chat complimented with a luggage malfunction which rendered him suitless), Kurt Elling's execution is nothing...
Jul 16, 2018
Review: Edinburgh Jazz Festival, Kurt Elling, Assembly Hall, Edinburgh
I hope I am a focused listener, but on Sunday evening I did find myself between a chatty child and a bloke who found it impossible to have a thought without voicing it immediately to his friend It is testament to the skill of vocalist Kurt...
Jul 11, 2018
Hot Wax Review: Kurt Elling’s The Questions
Religion or jazz: that's the career choice, in a way, that Kurt Elling made when he decided on a jazz singing career, leaving a Chicago divinity school just one credit shy of graduation Not that he's become a heathen In fact, it could be said...
Jun 14, 2018
Kurt Elling Summarizes the State of Jazz Singing on ‘The Questions’
Kurt Elling summarizes the state of jazz singing almost every time he hits the recording studio, His latest, The Questions, is no exception That doesn't mean that all of Elling's recordings are equally successful, but — with his exquisite...