Kurt Elling

THREE OAKS — Jazz vocalist Kurt Elling performs at 8 p.m. July 1 at The Acorn, 107 Generations Drive. A baritone with a four-octave range, Elling and pianist Laurence Hobgood had a longtime collaboration as leaders of a quartet. He also has toured as part of the UNESCO-sponsored “International...

Fans of the original Broadway cast of "Hamilton" and the Peacock comedy "Girls5Eva" won't want to miss spending "An Evening With Renée Elise Goldsberry" at the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University, 50 E. Ida B. Wells Drive, Chicago. $68-$132. (312) 341-2310 or auditoriumtheatre.com. 7 p.m. Saturday, April 9. Memorabilia...

It would be a dereliction of duty for me not to engage the political moment in my music (specifically in several songs on the 2020 recording Secrets are the Best Stories), given its vast challenges, concerns, and the justifiable anxieties of my audience. There’s just too much at stake for my children and yours, for democracy and for our very survival.

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Robin Lloyd: Tell me about your latest recording. Kurt Elling: The new album is “SuperBlue.” It's a very different project in many ways from projects I've done in the past. It's not an acoustic project. It came about because Charlie Hunter and I have known each other for...

Still feeling the effects of a fiery, four-night run at Ronnie Scott’s in London, Kurt Elling — DownBeat’s Male Vocalist of the Year — was safely back in the music-filled lair of his Chicago home, but operating in a zone between exhaustion and exhilaration. “They were...

After scoring his second Grammy Award (and 14th nomination) in March 2021, vocalist Kurt Elling hangs an unexpected left turn with SuperBlue for Edition Records. SuperBlue boasts the talents of producer-guitarist Charlie Hunter and two stars of the hip-hop generation: drummer Corey Fonville and bassist-keyboardist DJ Harrison (both of the genre-hopping band Butcher Brown). Elling has always been a master of grooves, ranging from bebop to pure pop and progressive jazz to neo-soul, but he’s never filled an album with grooves quite like these.

Last year, in the thick of pandemic lockdown, an exalted jazz vocalist and an eminent groove guitarist forged a partnership from a distance. Kurt Elling, the singer, had been seeking fresh connection at a time of disorienting distance from the bandstand. He found it with Charlie Hunter, the hybrid guitarist, who brought in a couple of younger firebrands from the Richmond, Va. funk collective Butcher Brown.

No one could have known it at the time, but the seeds for vocalist Kurt Elling’s SuperBlue may have been sown when he guested on seven-string hybrid guitarist Charlie Hunter’s underrated, genre-bending 2001 release, Songs from the Analog Playground. Twenty years later, the Grammy-winning Elling expands his horizons with Hunter (who co-produced SuperBlue with him) and keyboardist DJ Harrison and drummer Corey Fonville, both from the funk/jazz/hip-hop group Butcher Brown. With travel restricted during the COVID-19 pandemic, Elling never even met his Butcher Brown bandmates. Hunter acted as the go-between, recording basic tracks with them; presenting the instrumentals to the singer to interpret; and then finishing the project with Elling, all in separate studio locations.

Kurt Elling admits that from the outside, his collaboration with members of Butcher Brown might seem like a stretch. The Grammy-winning Chicago jazz vocalist, though, has been amassing a batch of skills and techniques during the past 25 years that seemed appropriate to dispatch alongside his younger Richmond cohort. “SuperBlue,”...

Diondre Dunigan is a 17-year-old teen from the Auburn Gresham neighborhood on the city’s Southside. This week, the talented singer will share the stage with Red Jacket Optional, a high-caliber broadcast production featuring two-time Grammy award-winning artist Kurt Elling, Chicago native singer-songwriter Natalie Bergman, Eurovision’s Vasil Garvanliev, and acclaimed opera singer Jonathan Green. The concert will occur at The Geraghty (2520 S. Hoyne Ave.) on October 16, 2021, with the free Livestream starting at 8:30 p.m. During the event, Chicago Children’s Choir ensembles will captivate audiences with a powerful set that includes a range of musical styles and numbers, including the world premiere of the original composition “Still Here,” by the Choir’s composer-in-residence W. Mitchell Owens III.

BTS V might land a special project soon as Kurt Elling raised his desire to work with the Kpop idol. BTS's list of collaborators keeps on growing as more western artists want to perform with them for a song or two. Even before reaching Hollywood, BTS members had already recorded songs with international artists.

This broadcast includes new releases from drummer Yoron Israel, saxophonist Nicole Glover, bassist Esperanza Spalding, vocalists Camille Bertault, Kurt Elling and Alexis Parsons, with birthday shoutouts to Koko Taylor, Lauren White, Laila Biali and Carolina Calvache. Thanks for listening and please support the artists you hear by purchasing their music during this time of pandemic so they can continue to distract, comfort and inspire.

(Edition EDN1174. Album Review by John Bungey) Kurt Elling has been busy turning himself into the male jazz vocalist of our times. In March he won his second Grammy for the elegant and original Secrets are the Best Stories. Now the master of bebop, skat and neo soul has taken a left turn. SuperBlue is a funk and beats-fuelled record that you can dance to. Either that or you can stand in the corner decoding the hipster humour (“Are you a brick house or a brick?”) and wordplay (“Manic Panic Epiphanic”).

Grammy-winning vocalist Kurt Elling, one of the most acclaimed jazz vocalists in the world, will release his latest album, SuperBlue on October 8 on Edition Records. Elling, born in Chicago in November 1967, says his interest in music began with his father who was Kapellmeister (choir director) at a Lutheran church. Elling sang in the church choir, played musical instruments and att...

(Ronnie Scotts, 21 September 2021. Fourth and final night of residency. First set. Review by Lavender Sutton) It’s no longer surprising that each album Kurt Elling puts out shows a completely different side of him if you follow his career. Each new record is a completely different take on a slightly different sub-genre of jazz from his collaboration with Ernie Watts on their Johnny Hartman/ John Coltrane tribute, or his last project with Panamanian pianist Danilo Perez.

The 42nd Detroit Jazz Festival, the largest free festival of its kind, went ahead in a manner, if not as usual, similar to last year: “remotely.” The downtown Marriott was again deployed to host three sponsored soundstages from which 36 shows were broadcast live. Herbie Hancock, playing his first public performances since the onset of Covid, declined photographers, journalists or audience in the ballroom for his opening night concert. Having lost Chick and McCoy recently and with Keith out of commission due to strokes, it was understandable that the 81 years young legend was extra cautious. When Jazzwise spoke to Monty Alexander, 77, before his hit with HKX (Harlem Kingston Express), it was to check on him, since he’d suffered a heart attack onstage in Montreal some years back. “Whatever that was, it’s gone!” responded the bon viveur pianist, impatient at mention of malady. Monty brought an all-star jazz/reggae octet including saxist Wayne Escoffery and guitarist Yotam Silberstein. Breaking schtick, he played in trio with vibraphone to commemorate a residency in Detroit with Milt Jackson back in ’67, after offering a darkly topical rendition of ‘Hurricane’ given recent damage wrought by such, “they used to terrify when I grew up on the island.”

Kurt Elling had never met the members of Butcher Brown before he stepped on stage with two of them —… This content is available to subscribers only. To continue reading, please login or start a FREE 14-Day Digital Subscription. Bundle your subscription with our award-winning print magazine here.

Jazz singer Kurt Elling will do a live chat with the Detroit Jazz Fest Foundation from 7 to 8 p.m. Tuesday on Zoom. Fans can join and submit questions; registration is free at linkin.bio/detroitjazzfest. Elling, with two Grammy wins and 14 nominations, is one of the most respected jazz vocalists...