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Kurt Elling/Bill Charlap Live, Albany, N.Y.
by R.J. DeLuke
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 ...
Continue ReadingKurt Elling: Nightmoves
by Woodrow Wilkins
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 ...
Continue ReadingKurt Elling: Nightmoves
by Jim Santella
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 ...
Continue ReadingKurt Elling: Nightmoves
by J Hunter
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 ...
Continue ReadingThe Bob Mintzer Big Band: Live at MCG with Kurt Elling
by Jack Bowers
Bob Mintzer leads a superlative big band with seasoned pros in every chair, but what really gives the engine its get-up-and-go are the maestro's invariably admirable charts, unerring road maps that always ensure a smooth and delightful journey. This first-ever live album by the ensemble, recorded in May '02 at the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild in Pittsburgh, PA, is at its best on the half-dozen instrumentals, even though guest vocalist Kurt Elling does what he can to jump-start the other three. ...
Continue ReadingKurt Elling Group Brilliant in Saratoga Springs, NY
by R.J. DeLuke
Kurt Elling continues to show, on an extraordinarily consistent basis, that he is one of the most remarkable musicians to appear on the scene in the last decade. It's easy, and understandable, to call him a singer, or vocalist. He is that, for sure. But the instrument he carries is comprised of more than vocal chords and breath forced from lungs. He's a complete musician whose polished performances come from the soul of an artist. The twists and turns of ...
Continue ReadingLive From Zanzibar Blue: Kurt Elling
by Victor L. Schermer
Zanzibar Blue Philadelphia, PA April 2, 2004 First Set | 8:00PM
(This is the second in a series of reviews that we will be doing from the “catbird seat” at Zanzibar Blue, Philadelphia’s premiere jazz club, located at Broad and Walnut Streets in Center City. We are grateful to the Zanzibar management for their generosity and cooperation in this venture.)
Kurt Elling is a consummate jazz vocalist packaged in the persona of a nineteen-fifties ...
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