Blog
Jun 04, 2004
Ode to Walt Whitman strikingly experimental yet pleasingly conventional
CHARLESTON - Pianist Fred Hersch has a reputation for challenging and evocative projects But little can match the depth and profound power of his latest work, the musical recasting of "Leaves of Grass" With an ensemble of two brass, two reeds,...
Apr 16, 2004
Kurt Elling happy singing what he loves without pressure from mainstream music
The last time Kurt Elling appeared at the University of Northern Colorado/ Greeley Jazz Festival, he was treated like an OutKast The high school and college students screamed so loud when he was introduced it scared him They screamed as if he...
Dec 31, 2003
Kurt Elling: Spirit of the Monterey Jazz Festival
Great jazz draws on history while offering innovation Singer Kurt Elling embodied that spirit and then some this weekend at the 46th annual Monterey Jazz Festival, channeling predecessors of the art form and conjuring a vision of its...
Jul 30, 2003
CD Review of Man in the Air
Single-handedly, Kurt Elling has reinvigorated the art of vocalese, and popularized it, as no other singer, male or female, has in decades With unpredictability, intellect and a sense of adventure, Elling's treatments of songs that we think are...
Jul 24, 2003
Review: Man In The Air
Kurt Elling has finally delivered on the potential promised on his 1997 album The Messenger It is true that Elling has been terrifically consistent in his offerings with very inspired performances-- even if the material and its execution were...
Jul 22, 2003
Music Review of Man In The Air
There are two schools of thought on Kurt Elling Both sides tend to agree that Elling is a talented interpreter of songs in the jazz style, and that he possesses a certain skill when it comes to scat and to vocalese One side, however, laments...
Sep 30, 2001
Kurt Elling’s ‘LA/CHI/NY’ at Steppenwolf:Elling blends poetry, jazz in new work
Only a hard-swinging, head-tripping, scat-singing jazz poet such as Chicagoan Kurt Elling could have come up with it And only a theater company as fearless as Chicago's Steppenwolf would have dared to stage it Yet there it was, Monday night on...
Sep 30, 2001
Flirting with the mainstreamBrilliant jazz vocalist Kurt Elling plays it a little straighter
If the Chicago-based Kurt Elling has yet to find the kind of crossover audience that other vocalists have lucked into, perhaps it's because he's simply too hip Maybe this compelling ballad collection will put Elling over the top, but don't hold...
Sep 28, 2001
Jazzman’s notes of grace sweep pall away
Grace comes in surprising packages Sometimes grace, that hard-to-define-but-easy-to-recognize quality, arrives in a kind word from a friend, an extra week to pay a bill, a soft breeze on a sweltering day Two weeks ago, grace arrived,...
Jul 23, 2001
Kurt Elling: Polished and Passionate
Don't look now, but isn't singer Kurt Elling just getting better and better With the pending release of his fifth CD, Flirting with Twilight in late August, he blew into Hartford Connecticut on July 22 for a performance at the Great Hartford...
Mar 24, 2001
Jazz vocalist lends artful style to music
Kurt Elling blew in from Chicago on Saturday night, making his local debut at the Jazz Kitchen and putting substance to the claims of admirers that he's taking jazz vocalism into fresh territory Whatever one thinks of the merit behind Grammy...
Aug 01, 2000
Down Beat 48th Annual Critics PollKurt Elling – Male Vocalist of the Year
The critics pick the best in jazz, blues & beyond Down Beat 48th Annual Critics Poll To the casual observer, any young singer who has notched four Blue Note albums and three Grammy nominations ought to feel as if he's on top of the world...