Jazz Articles about Kurt Elling

Kurt Elling: Dedicated To You

by A. Lienhard
June 20, 2009

Dedicated To You is a tribute to one of the most beloved and beautiful recordings in jazz, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman. On that six song album, John Coltrane introduces a relatively unknown singer named Johnny Hartman. The two musicians had only just met one another, however in a mere three hours, they produce a classic. Hartman unfortunately never gains much recognition beyond this one album. Coltrane obviously fares a bit better. Kurt Elling is a standout ...

Laurence Hobgood / Charlie Haden / Kurt Elling: When The Heart Dances

by Chris May
May 20, 2009

Man, this is a beautiful album. How could it be otherwise? An intimate, unhurried conversation between Laurence Hobgood, since 1994 vocalist Kurt Elling's musical director, and one of the finest jazz pianists out there, and the magisterial Charlie Haden, featured bassist in bands led by saxophonist Ornette Coleman, pianist Keith Jarrett and guitarist Pat Metheny, among a truck load of other distinctions. The inimitable Elling guests on three tracks.

In his liner notes, describing the genesis of When ...

Kurt Elling: Nightmoves

by Samuel Chell
June 20, 2007

If the verbiage generated by a release is proportionate to its profitability, Kurt Elling must be firmly ensconced in the black. Nightmoves has already garnered volumes of ink (All Music Guide devotes three times more space to it than Miles Davis' Kind of Blue). Perhaps equally impressive testimony to Elling's eminence is that he can afford to take four years between albums and, like Sinatra in the 1950s, keep his Down Beat poll-winning streak as top male jazz vocalist intact. ...

Kurt Elling/Bill Charlap Live, Albany, N.Y.

by R.J. DeLuke
May 4, 2007

Kurt Elling with the Lawrence Hobgood Trio and the Bill Charlap Trio The Egg Albany, New York April 21, 2007

Kurt Elling is arguably the premier jazz singer on the scene today. Jazz musician may be a better label, since he's so much more than someone who steps in front of a microphone and provides vocals. No boy jazz singer, he.

He's released his first CD in four years (all of the others ...

Kurt Elling: Nightmoves

by Woodrow Wilkins
May 3, 2007

To say that vocalist Kurt Elling has tremendous range only reveals part of the picture. Listening to Live at MCG with Kurt Elling (MCG Jazz, 2004), which he recorded with the Bob Mintzer Big Band, Elling's seemingly effortless move from low to high and back, whether singing lyrics or scatting, is a jaw-dropping experience. The seven-time Grammy nominee and 2006 Down Beat Male Vocalist of the Year now exhibits his range in another way. Nightmoves, his Concord ...

Kurt Elling: Nightmoves

by Jim Santella
March 28, 2007

Kurt Elling has mellowed some. Quite the original voice in jazz for more than a decade, he's introduced us to adventure and thrills. He's helped to maintain the spirit of straight-ahead jazz with a superb pianist by his side while moving enchantingly in and out of the mainstream. Elling's soothing baritone voice lends itself to both the romantic ballad and to the thrills of more adventurous music.

Lately, however, he's concentrated more on the romantic ballad and has ...

Kurt Elling: Nightmoves

by J Hunter
March 27, 2007

Everyone deserves a fresh start. What's more, everyone gets a fresh start, every day: It's called “sunrise. That sounds like a bad joke, but it's true. Every day is a clean slate, if we just commit ourselves to that concept. This theme of renewal and redemption drives Nightmoves, Kurt Elling's first disc in four years.

Elling is all about new beginnings nowadays; he's taken on new management, and he's making his Concord debut after a ten-year relationship with ...