Kurt Elling in 2013: Another very good year indeed!
For the fourteenth year in a row, Kurt was named Male Vocalist of the Year in the 61st DownBeat Critics Poll, and he got his eighth win in the 78th DownBeat Readers Poll this year!
Kurt received several international awards as well:
Blue Note Milano Award of the Year – 2013
Kurt performed 114 shows in 65 cities in 21 countries this year, and more at sea on The Jazz Cruise in the Caribbean. He also presented several master classes and talks.
He flew 100,000 miles between January 1 and July 1, including five trips to Europe and one to Japan.
Most of his gigs were with the Kurt Elling Quintet, touring behind his Grammy-nominated 2012 recording, 1619 Broadway – The Brill Building Project.
In March, Kurt also performed with the Modern Art Orchestra in Budapest.
In April, he presented an all Cole Porter show with the Chicago Jazz Orchestra. He also performed in Michael Feinstein's Elegant Elling shows at Jazz at Lincoln Center.
In May he performed in Dublin with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, conducted by Brian Byrne; in Luxembourg with the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, conducted by Gast Waltzing; and in Ljubljana, Slovenia with the Big Band & Symphony Orchestra RTV Slovenija, conducted by Michael Abene.
He continued these collaborations with orchestras again in September, performing in Bremen with the Metropole Orkest, conducted by Jules Buckley, and in Berlin with the Bundesjazzorchester (BuJazzO), conducted by Jiggs Whigham and Niels Klein.
In June, he performed in the world premiere of Guy Barker's That Obscure Hurt at the Aleburgh Music Festival in Snapes, England, celebrating Benjamin Britten's centenary. That Obscure Hurt is Barker's musical suite with lyrics by Rob Ryan, based on a short story by Henry James. Other performers included narrator Janie Dee, the BBC Concert Orchestra & the Guy Barker Jazz Orchestra.
In August, the KEQ performed at the Tónica Jazz Festival in Guadalajara, Mexico where Kurt also gave a keynote talk. It was his second visit to Mexico.
In addition to touring with his Quintet, Kurt also performed with:
The Modern Art Orchestra, Istanbul Superband, Aki Yashiro, Regina Carter, Helen Merrill, Chicago Jazz Orchestra, Michael Feinstein, Brianna Thomas, Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton, Tedd Firth, NJCU Jazz Ensembles, RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Big Band & Symphony Orchestra RTV Slovenija, Peter Erskine, Bob Mintzer, Guy Barker, Janie Dee, BBC Concert Orchestra, Guy Barker Jazz Orchestra, Jazz Orchestra of Concertgebouw, Metropole Orkest, Fred Hersch, Berta Rojas, Vanessa Rubin, Bundesjazzorchester, Irvin Mayfield & the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, Allen Toussaint, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Haley Reinhart, and VojtÄ›ch Dyk & the B-Side Band.