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Kurt Elling
He has come to embody the creative spirit in jazz ~ The Washington Post
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January 2012: Looking toward the future
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Dear Friends,
Happy New Year! Thanks for sticking with us here at KE, Inc. Our 2011 was filled with music, new friends and (almost) overwhelming amounts of travel.
Thanks to you all for supporting THE GATE and all of our various projects. Now 2012 promises to be even more demanding -- and rewarding.
Laurence and I are meeting this week to begin sketching out arrangements for (yet another) new recording. This one should be coming out in August or September. We have a lot to do in a short amount of time. We'll be having updates for you as our work progresses.
We have a show in development in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Frank Sinatra's world tour for charity, which was the first of its kind in the world of music. Those of you on the East Coast will have the best chance to catch this very limited-engagement special project.
I'll be doing several dates with The Metropole Orchestra in Holland. They will be creating many new arrangements for me as a featured part of an international arrangers' workshop.
I am also looking fwd to hitting again with my friends from Köln, Germany, The WDR Orchestra. Michael Abene, who has written several wonderful big band charts for me in the past, will be in charge of orchestrating the small group charts Laurence and I created for PASSION WORLD. I am very excited about working with Michael and the incredible ensemble over there.
Charlie Hunter and I will be doing dates together throughout Europe -- working "the sweaty rooms" at festivals, getting people to dance. Look for a big online presence with that July tour.
I could go on but then I start to get overwhelmed! Too much to think of all at once. Suffice it to say I'll be busy. I hope it somehow adds to the greater good and not to just my own creative satisfaction.
I'll need your help this year keeping the momentum growing. Thanks for all your music-buying, ticket-buying, traveling, poll-voting, Facebook-posting & KE Forum-participating in 2011. I hope to see you all healthy and happy in 2012.My best,
Kurt
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January 2012January is named for Janus, the god of beginnings and transitions and of gates, doorways, endings, and time. He looks to the future and to the past. Since last January, we've traveled together 584,020,178 miles through space as Earth completed another orbit around the sun. And in the past year, Kurt performed in 138 shows in 74 cities in 24 countries. The Gate, Kurt's ninth album and his third on the Concord label, debuted in February 2011 to great acclaim and was #1 on the JazzWeek Jazz Chart for nine weeks. JazzWeek later declared The Gate its 2011 Record of the Year.Producer Don Was (Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and Bonnie Raitt) brought his exquisite sensibility, expertise, and great love of music into the studio to help make The Gate a truly outstanding album. As with all of Kurt's recordings, The Gate received the Grammy nomination for Best Vocal Jazz Album. The 54th Grammy Awards will be announced on February 12, 2012. The Gate won the prestigious 2011 Edison Jazz/World Award for Vocal Jazz. The Edison is considered the Dutch Grammy. The Gate was also on many year-end "best of 2011" jazz lists. Asked about this Janus-like title for the album, Kurt said,
"The Gate is a reference to a lot of things. It's a reference to 'swings like a gate.' It's a reference to the Gateless Gate that you'll find in the East. To the gate that you'll pass through between the sacred and the profane that is around you all the time, that is awaiting every step, that you fall into, that you experiment with from childhood on... And also, every recording is a gate. Every recording is something that you pass through, that makes a new statement, that takes you into a new territory." And now 2012 brings us into a new time, a new territory, with new music and all new notes!
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Looking back at 2011
 In addition to all the praise and awards for The Gate, Kurt's artistry has also been widely recognized and awarded.
For the twelfth year in a row Kurt was named Male Vocalist of the Year in the DownBeat Critics Poll, and he got his sixth win in the DownBeat Readers Poll.
JazzTimes readers agreed, voting Kurt as the Male Vocalist of the Year in the JazzTimes Readers' Poll. It was his seventh win there.
The Jazz Journalists Association also tapped Kurt as Male Singer of the Year for the seventh time.
In September, the Urban League Club of Chicago inducted Kurt and the Ravinia Festival's Welz Kauffman as Distinguished Musicians, honoring their contributions to the arts and the community.
Kurt toured extensively behind The Gate with the Kurt Elling Quintet -- Kurt, along with his long-time collaborator and musical director Laurence Hobgood on piano, Harish Raghavan (January-June) and then Clark Sommers on bass, Ulysses Owens on drums, and featuring Chicago's own John McLean on guitar.
Kurt also performed with an amazing number of guest artists and musical collaborators during the year:
- Klüvers Big Band
- Scottish National Jazz Orchestra
- Nashville Symphony
- Richard Galliano
- John Pizzarelli
- Ernie Watts
- Bill Charlap, Ken Peplowski, Jeremy Pelt, & Jimmy Greene
- Jon Hendricks, Al Jarreau, & the Metropole Orchestra conducted by Vince Mendoza
- Herbie Hancock, Chaka Khan, Glen Hansard, Aimee Mann, Wayne Shorter, & Cassandra Wilson
- Dee Dee Bridgewater, Chaka Khan, Jane Monheit, Dianne Reeves, Aretha Franklin, & Jennifer Hudson
- Miguel Zenón
- Lew Tabackin
- Ravi Coltrane
- Robin Eubanks
- Stefon Harris
- John Hollenbeck's the Claudia Quintet +1
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What Is The Beautiful?
What Is The Beautiful? from The Claudia Quintet +1 features Kurt Elling and Theo Bleckmann on vocals. One hundred years after poet Kenneth Patchen's birth, composer/drummer John Hollenbeck and The Claudia Quintet +1 celebrate Patchen in this hour-long tribute, which reimagines Patchen's texts in a unique musical setting. Kurt is really proud of this record, which is like a second Elling release in 2011.
Chris Barton wrote in the Los Angeles Times:
"Elling nearly steals the record with his trademark baritone. Burrowing into Patchen's words with sly gravity and wit, Elling adds a working-class patter to the twisted work parable "Job" and taps into his inner Tom Waits with a stumbling slur on "Opening The Window." The meeting reaches its peak on the title track, which features Elling and the band slowly gathering power with each recitation of Patchen's calm command, 'Pause. And begin again.'"
Doug Simpson, writing for Audiophile Audition, agrees: "When Hollenbeck was in pre-production planning, he immediately thought Elling would be a perfect fit, not knowing Elling was already a Patchen aficionado. Instead of offering his typical singing style, Elling populates Patchen's poems as an actor would a stage role."
"The truly outstanding tunes are bold statements which transform Patchen's lines as they converge with Hollenbeck's compositional ideas. The philosophical title track is an example of this union of imagination. Elling's rich enunciation is pointed and precise while the band provides apropos backing which swings with finesse and authority. Elling is wholly convincing when he intones, ' I believe in the truth / I believe that every good thought I have / All men shall have.'
What Is The Beautiful? is among the JazzTimes Critics Picks of Top 50 Albums, and Ben Ratliff of The New York Times listed the title track in his Top Songs of 2011. | |
 POEMJAZZ
POEMJAZZ is a very cool new CD featuring poet Robert Pinsky and pianist Laurence Hobgood, due out in February from Circumstantial Productions.
POEMJAZZ treats a voice speaking poetry as having a role like that of a horn: speech with its own poetic melody and rhythm, in conversation with what the music is doing. To put it simply, POEMJAZZ is a conversation between the sounds of poetry and music.
Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky is a dynamic, prodigious, prolific, relevant, and true "people's poet," a rhythmic original who has resonated with jazz music since very early in his trajectory. Laurence plays while Robert reads -- in a spontaneous, unfolding musical conversation.
Laurence is tremendously excited by this collaborative project. Robert Pinsky told The Paris Review, "In jazz, as in poetry there is always that play between what's regular and what's wild. That has always appealed to me."
Pinsky and Hobgood present their first live concert, "An Evening of POEMJAZZ," on February 24, 2012 at The Regattabar Jazz Club, Charles Hotel, Cambridge MA. | |
The NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship is the highest honor that our nation bestows on jazz artists. Each year since 1982, the program has elevated to its ranks a select number of living legends who have made exceptional contributions to the advancement of jazz. Because of budget cuts, this 30th anniversary is the last year of the NEA Jazz Masters Awards.
This year, five jazz masters are being honored: Jack DeJohnette, Von Freeman, Charlie Haden, Sheila Jordan, and Jimmy Owens.
On Tuesday, January 10th at 7:30 pm EST, watch the live webcast of the NEA Jazz Masters Awards Ceremony & Concert.
Von Freeman, Charlie Haden, and Sheila Jordan are great friends and collaborators with Kurt and Laurence, and they've performed and/or recorded with them over the years.
Honoring Von Freeman
 Legendary Chicago tenor saxophonist, Earle Lavon Freeman - also known as Von and Vonski - performed on Kurt's first album, Close Your Eyes, and later on Live in Chicago. Kurt's vocalese on "I Like the Sunrise" (Nightmoves) is an adaptation of a Rumi poem set over a Von Freeman solo.
Watch: NEA Jazz Masters Salute to Von Freeman (03:54)
Honoring Sheila Jordan
 Kurt counts Sheila Jordan as one of his favorite vocalists. He says, "She's a liberated Jazz singer of the finest kind. There are a lot of lessons in freedom and wisdom to be learned from a Sheila Jordan set." In 2005, Sheila joined Kurt, Jon Hendricks, and Mark Murphy in concert for an epic show called "Three Brothers and a Mother."
Watch: NEA Jazz Masters Salute to Sheila Jordan (03:57)
Honoring Charlie Haden
 Laurence Hobgood's When the Heart Dances features Charlie Haden on bass. Kurt sings on several tracks, including Haden's "First Song," written for his wife Ruth Cameron. Kurt also wrote a vocalese over Charlie Haden's "Moonlight Serenade" solo (from Haden's album Haunted Heart), which is the first track on Flirting With Twilight.
Watch: NEA Jazz Masters Salute to Charlie Haden (03:30)
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Grammy nominated!
The Gate
Kurt Elling with Laurence Hobgood, and featuring John Patitucci, John McLean, Bob Mintzer, Terreon Gully, Kobie Watkins, and Lenny Castro. Produced by Don Was.
Watch the behind-the-scenes
video and listen to Don Was
talk about The Gate, Kurt, and the band.
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 Short Takes
Lyrics, Second Edition
This elegantly designed book contains 33 lyrics, 27 from the first edition and 6 new ones, plus Kurt's expanded introduction on vocalese. The new lyrics are Waking the Dreamclock (2008), Samurai Cowboy (2008), Late Night Willie (2009), La Vie en Rose (2010), Love's a Tangled Road (2010), and They Speak No Evil (2010). Visit Kurt's Store for your very own copy. Lyrics was edited by Richard Connolly and designed and published by Circumstantial Productions.
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Have you heard Kurt's funky performance of Woody Guthrie's "Peace Pin Boogie" yet? It's a tongue-in-cheek look at the rewards of being politically correct. Kurt is one of 14 artists on the 429 Records release, Note of Hope: A Celebration of Woody Guthrie, based on the words and writings of the great American master. v
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| JANUARY - FEBRUARY Gigs |
January 29 - February 5, 2012
Kurt Elling Quintet
The Jazz Cruise - SOLD OUT!
Sails from Fort Lauderdale, FL to Aruba, Curaçao, and Half Moon Cay & back.
February 14, 2012
Kurt Elling: Passion World
Special guests:
Regina Carter, violin
Anat Cohen, clarinet & saxophone
Symphony Center
220 S. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL
February 18, 2012
Lizz Wright & Kurt Elling
Be My Valentine
Orchestra Hall
1111 Nicollet Mall
Minneapolis, MN
February 24, 2012
An Evening of POEMJAZZ
featuring Robert Pinsky & Laurence Hobgood
Regattabar Jazz Club at the Charles Hotel
One Bennett Street
Cambridge, MA
Note: Kurt Elling is not on this gig.
Coming up!
In early April Kurt visits New Zealand to perform with Rodger Fox's Wellington Jazz Orchestra. At the end of April there are three performances of Kurt Elling Swings Sinatra in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
Kurt's upcoming gigs in 2012 are on the Touring page on his website. That's where you'll always find the most current information. Check there often, as new dates are always being added.
To bring the KEQ to a stage near you Kurt and Laurence are on the road about 200 nights a year. They only perform where they've been invited (by people who write checks!) and they don't get to set their own itinerary. To hear Kurt and the band play in your city, region, or country, please ask your favorite jazz clubs or festivals to book them through Kurt's new booking agency, IMN (International Music Network). Thank you! |
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Your Moment of Elling . . .
I'm an artist who's working now,
whose work is contemporary and futurist in orientation,
but brings the past along to inform what happens.
Every night we're trying to find something new in the music.
That's what jazz is really about.
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