Kurt Elling

Kurt Elling is the preeminent young male jazz singer today. NIGHTMOVES, Elling’s first recording for Concord/Universal will propel his career to new heights. This follows a ten-year stretch that saw Elling earn seven GRAMMY nominations for six Blue Note albums, six consecutive years at the top of the DownBeat Critics and JazzTimes Readers' polls, three Jazz Journalists' Association Awards for Best Male Vocalist and the Prix Billie Holiday from the Academie du Jazz in Paris. His quartet has toured the world, performing to critical acclaim in Europe, the Middle East, South America, Asia and Australia, and at jazz festivals and concert halls across the North America.

In addition to working with his own quartet, Kurt Elling has spent recording and/or erforming time with an array of artists that includes Terrence Blanchard, Dave Brubeck, The Clayton/Hamilton Orchestra, Benny Golson, Jon Hendricks, Fred Hersch, Charlie Hunter, Al Jarreau, David Liebman, Joe Lovano, Christian
McBride, Marian McPartland, The Bob Mintzer Big Band, Mark Murphy, John Pizzarelli, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and The Yellowjackets. He has written multidisciplinary works of art for The Steppenwolf Theater and for the City of Chicago. Moreover, Kurt Elling is a former National Trustee and National Vice Chair of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (The GRAMMYS)
and was artist-in-residence for the Monterey Jazz Festival’s 2006 season.

Kurt Elling's rich baritone voice spans four octaves and displays an astonishing technical facility and emotional depth. Elling has an awesome command of rhythm, texture, phrasing, and dynamics, often sounding more like a virtuoso jazz musician than a mere singer. His repertoire ranges from his own compositions to modern interpretations of standards, both of which can be the springboard for free form improvisation, scatting, spoken word and poetry. As composer and lyricist, Elling has written scores of his own compositions and set lyrics to the songs and improvised solos of many jazz masters. In addition to the compositional work he has done with collaborator-in-chief, Laurence Hobgood, Elling has collaborated in the creation of new pieces with Jon Clayton, Fred Hersch, Bob Mintzer, Charlie Hunter and Orbert Davis, among others.

One of Kurt Elling's major contributions is as a writer and performer of vocalese, the art of putting words to improvised solos of jazz artists. The natural heir to jazz pioneers Eddie Jefferson, King Pleasure, and Jon Hendricks, Elling is the contemporary voice in vocalese, setting the solos of Wayne Shorter, Keith Jarrett, Dexter Gordon, Pat Metheny, and others to his own deeply spiritual and compelling lyrics, an approach that reminds us of the beauty of the original music and opens us up to a fresh vision. Elling infuses his lyrics with passion, humor, and a startling intellectual depth, often incorporating images and references from writers such as Rilke, Proust, Kerouac, Rumi, Neruda and Kenneth Rexroth into his work.

Kurt Elling has been featured in profiles for CBS Sunday Morning, for CNN, and in hundreds of newspaper and magazine reviews and articles. The New York Times called his shows at Birdland “good, battering entertainment.”(1/99) Said the Chicago Tribune, “Kurt Elling is going to change many listeners’ minds on the meaning and purpose of Jazz singing.”(1/96) Playboy Magazine named Elling “the male Jazz vocalist of the Nineties.” (10/98) More recently, The Guardian (UK) declared, “Elling is an omnicompetent artist of almost ruthless efficiency ... (He) is truly a musical phenomenon.” (2/02) And Jazz Review (UK) raised the possibility that “Elling may be the greatest male Jazz singer of all time.” (1/02)

In 2002, Elling produced a vocal summit entitled “Four Brothers” at Chicago’s Park West Theater, which featured Elling and Mark Murphy, Kevin Mahogany, and the legendary Jon Hendricks. A cross-generational tribute to the art of jazz singing, the "Four Brothers" on occasion also featured Andy Bey, Giacomo Gates and Peter Eldrige in place of Kevin Mahogany. Elling led the group on successful tours of Europe and the U.S. in 2003 and 2004 to broad acclaim. A final blowout performance in the summer of 2005 took place in Chicago's Millennium Park. The concert featured Sheila Jordan in the fourth spot and was called "Three Brotha's and a Motha'."

In 2004, Elling was invited to perform and record a groundbreaking work by pianist and composer Fred Hersch. A prolific composer, Hersch created a song cycle based on words from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, performed by a 10-piece chamber jazz ensemble of voices, brass, woodwinds, strings, and rhythm section.

In 2006, acting as artist-in-residence at the 49th annual Monterey Festival, Elling teamed up with composer/bassist Jon Clayton to create “Red Man/Black Man.” Here Elling juxtaposed his own new writing with the works of Native American poets – most notably, Maurice Kenny – and Chicago poet and Pulitzer Prizewinner the late Gwendolyn Brooks in a musical setting that featured the Clayton/Hamilton Orchestra.

Elling has gone beyond jazz performance to write and direct more broadly based literary and artistic events, most notably in works commissioned by Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater. In 1998 he undertook a critical, multi-dimensional exploration of the life and work of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg. Elling was commissioned one year later to create an event fusing jazz and modern dance, this time featuring his wife, professional dancer Jennifer Elling.

Perhaps the highest profile commission to date has come from the City of Chicago, which invited Elling to write, direct, perform in and host a ninety-minute performance event for its millennial celebration. Two guests from every country in the world were invited to Chicago and were hosted by the city for a weeklong celebration, “The Whole World Comes Home To Chicago.” Elling’s production, “This Is Our Music, These Are Our People”, served as the showcase of the city’s artistic life. The show featured blues great Buddy Guy, Von Freeman, author and historian Studs Terkel, word artist Ken Nordine, Illinois Poet Laureate the late Ms. Gwendolyn Brooks, members of the Joffrey Ballet, visual art from Ed Paschke and Tony Fitzpatrick and a ninety voice gospel choir, The Reginald McCracken True Voices of Christ Concert Ensemble.