Meet Kurt Elling

Craig Jolley

Interviewer since 1999

Recent articles (68 total)

Published: July 27, 2009

Ranting is my version of going off on something. Mark [Murphy] does little bits of it now and then. Sassy [Sarah Vaughan] certainly could do whatever she felt like doing with an improvised lyric and a melody at the same time. But I try to make it an event. It's my solo space. The band is playing changes, or we're playing free or what have you, and I'm creating a melody line and a lyric line at the same time. Sometimes I've got something that's got me fired up I know I'm going to do. Other times it just sort of jumps out. The drummer plays something—I hear it, and, "Oh yeah, that's where I'm going!" It sounds more complicated than it is.

Free music

I like challenging stuff. You know the AACM is based in Chicago. Since there's nobody looking over your shoulder you might get a record deal from things are looser in Chicago, and musicians are able to develop the way they want to. Stuff is real burly. The city feels that way, and it sounds that way. I feel it's more a function of location than anything else. It's the kind of thing that happened in Ed Peterson's band all the time. He'd say, "Yeah, man—let's just play free, and Kurt, you just go off on something, and we'll follow you." And these are cats that can really do it. It's not like anybody can just play free and have it sound right. It has its own logistical elements and parameters. It isn't just, play anything any time. It's musical interaction in a different way. I guess I'm spoiled because so many of the cats I know can do it really well.

Laurence Hobgood

My musical relationship with Laurence is a real gift to me, and I hope it is to him as well. We pick up where the other one leaves off. It's sort of a terrible twosome. He has an incredible, remarkable, significant, unbelievable grasp of the theoretical area of music, and I do whatever it is I do.

Upcoming project

We're going to do a show that is through composed [non-repeating music] with a plot. Laurence and I will split the music writing. I'll write the plot and whatever it is that happens and direct it and the whole thing. I don't know what it is yet, but I'm working on it. That's the thing I hope the next record is drawn from. Something we could take to the Joseph Papp Theatre, something like that, and have a little run. It might be a monologue thing that becomes interactive when the music hits. I always want the music to be the real thing. It's not going to be like a staged Broadway thing as much as it's going to be a jazz show with a story line and lighting. You know, hip lighting.

Jazz education

It's hard enough to be a player. I don't have regular students, but I do my classes and such every once in a while. That's a whole other vocation. It takes a lot of energy, man, that I don't have that much of. I like to work with people, but it's exhausting. Music is feeding. You're out there, and you can pass the ball around. What I'm doing with master classes is trying to pull shit out of people—just trying to get them to come along. Much more difficult task!

Wrap up

I'm grateful for your interest in what I do. I hope people like the record, and that I continue to have the opportunity to play for more people and grow as a musician and have different, cool opportunities to travel around. It's a good life.

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Date	Venue	Tickets
Jun08	Rose and Alfred Miniaci Performing Arts Center Fort Lauderdale, FL	buy
Jun29	Kilbourn Hall Rochester, NY
Jun29	Kilbourn Hall Rochester, NY
May10	Royal Conservatory Koerner Hall Toronto, Canada	buy

Kurt Elling | Dedicated To You EPK from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

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