Jazz Articles about Kurt Elling

Kurt Elling: Flirting With Twilight

by Jim Santella
September 1, 2001

This weekend's shopping list is now clearly defined. Just released, Kurt Elling's fifth album grabs you by the heartstrings and just won't let go. It's a ballad album from the emotional jazz singer based in Chicago. Emphasizing traditional harmony with unique inner voicing, Elling strolls with a superb horn trio and rhythm section. From a delicately soft whisper to a mighty roar, the vocalist produces dynamic changes to enhance each lyric gem. Coming from a wide range of sources, the ...

Kurt Elling: Live In Chicago

by Mark Corroto
February 1, 2000

Singer Kurt Elling’s first three recordings for Blue Note records were quite ambitious, but being studio albums, they lost much of Elling’s spirit in the production. The jazz singer, like the poet, is best heard live. Elling, captured during a three-night gig at Chicago’s Green Mill, finally has realized (on record) his full potential. He’s a scatting, rapping, swinging metaphysician of hip. The former philosophy and divinity student picks up on the vocal tradition of Mark Murphy, maybe becoming the ...

Kurt Elling: Live In Chicago

by Jim Santella
February 1, 2000

Kurt Elling and his trio should be on television. They appear regularly on Wednesdays at The Green Mill in Chicago, and his in-person performances are superb. Only the singer’s fourth album in five years, this one was recorded live July 14-16, 1999 with several influential guests. “My Foolish Heart," a carry-over from his last album, offers evidence of how different Elling’s in-person performances are from his studio sessions. The ensemble’s arrangement of “My Foolish Heart" on Live In Chicago employs ...

Kurt Elling: Live In Chicago

by Mark Corroto
February 1, 2000

Singer Kurt Elling’s first three recordings for Blue Note records were quite ambitious, but being studio albums, they lost much of Elling’s spirit in the production. The jazz singer, like the poet, is best heard live. Elling, captured during a three-night gig at Chicago’s Green Mill, finally has realized (on record) his full potential. He’s a scatting, rapping, swinging metaphysician of hip. The former philosophy and divinity student picks up on the vocal tradition of Mark Murphy, maybe becoming the ...

Kurt Elling: Live In Chicago

by Jim Santella
February 1, 2000

Kurt Elling and his trio should be on television. They appear regularly on Wednesdays at The Green Mill in Chicago, and his in-person performances are superb. Only the singer’s fourth album in five years, this one was recorded live July 14-16, 1999 with several influential guests. “My Foolish Heart," a carry-over from his last album, offers evidence of how different Elling’s in-person performances are from his studio sessions. The ensemble’s arrangement of “My Foolish Heart" on Live In Chicago employs ...

Joanne Brackeen: Pink Elephant Magic

by Glenn Astarita
May 1, 1999

One of the great pianist’s and unsung heroes in Modern Jazz returns in incendiary and dynamic fashion. Joanne Brackeen’s Pink Elephant Magic is stunning, articulate and easily one of the premier jazz recordings of 1999.

The title track and opener, “Pink Elephant Magic” is simply an outstanding composition! The complex and seemingly difficult to perform arrangement is multifaceted, cleverly orchestrated and superior in scope and altogether artfully constructed. Brackeen, with the assistance of Nicholas Payton (trumpet), Chris Potter (soprano sax) ...

Joanne Brackeen: Pink Elephant Magic

by Jack Bowers
May 1, 1999

This new recording showcases not one but two of Joanne Brackeen’s conspicuous talents, and is uplifted not only by her exemplary keyboard work but her persuasive writing as well. Brackeen, now some 30 years removed from her early service with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, writes with clear images in mind, and the results can be observed in such charming sound portraits as “Pink Elephant Magic,” “Ghost Butter,” “Filene’s,” “Beethoven Meets the Millennium in Spain” and “Cram ’n Exam” (a note–heavy ...