Late night singer on my radio

Live in Chicago; Kurt Elling

Late one evening on my drive home from a White House job, I was listening to NPR’s Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland. I hope that, if you do not know about the show, you take the opportunity to explore it. Ms. McPartland has been on the air with this show for 30 years. And she herself turned 91 years of age this year. She is an excellent jazz pianist and a phenomenal interviewer. Her show is one hour long and features one artist, usually a pianist. And she has interviewed the greatest. She spends much of the hour having the guest perform. Even if the guest is a pianist, they typically perform together at some point.

On this evening I heard a young male vocal jazz artist; a rarity these days, for some reason. Right before the break she said his name. Kurt Elling lives in Chicago. Ms. McPartland also lives in Chicago so a pairing was inevitable. He and his band regularly play at the Green Mill in Chicago on Wednesday evenings when they are not on tour. The first comment I heard Ms. McPartland make about him concerned his proclivity for reciting poetry to open up sets at the Green Mill. For the rest of the ride home, I alternated between indulgence in the tasteful phrasing of this expressive maestro and panic that I wouldn’t remember his name when I got home.

Kurt Elling graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN, and, interestingly enough, enrolled in The University of Chicago Divinity School, studying there for three years before leaving just one credit short of graduating. He has recorded nine albums and currently is Vice Chair of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the service organization that produces the annual Grammy Awards.

Live in Chicago exudes excitement. Live albums usually do. The youthfulness and freshness of his voice, though, almost make the hipness tangible. You can hear immediately that the audience is on his side, and by association, so am I. I want everything to go right for this guy. Before a note gets played, he says, “Okay, here we go, we’re gonna make a record.” And we’re off to the races with the drums clearing the brush. The second track is my favorite: “My Foolish Heart.” My first hearing of this tune came with the Tony Bennett/Bill Evans album referred to just a few days ago. Mr. Elling and his band dress it up, though, into a swingier, swankier groove, going down avenues that the composer never could have imagined. The audience sits spellbound, even captivated, while the ensemble detours onto a side road of carefully constructed ambiguity, leading the listeners through a foggy maze of long pedal tones from the bass and rhythmic piano hammer tappings onto a dampened string while a type of back story is spun by Mr. Elling, emerging on the other side of the mystical haze onto the main road to a roar of triumphant applause from a relieved audience.

Three nights of recording at the Green Mill has produced a powerful album. All of the cast members on Kurt Elling’s stage are masters of their craft. But I find profound joy in the stylings of Mr. Elling’s pianist Laurence Hobgood. It sounds to me like Mr. Hobgood has invented chords that I would swear music theorists never knew existed. The textures of his accompaniments weave deeply into the musical embroidery of Mr. Elling's ensemble.

I heard Kurt Elling in 2002 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. It was about 6 months or so after September 11, 2001. He performed “Not While I’m Around”, a song from Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd. His audience wrapped themselves up in the blanket of security laid before them:

Demons are prowling everywhere, nowadays, I’ll send them howling, I don’t care, I’ve got ways…

No one’s gonna hurt you, no one’s gonna dare, Others can desert you, not to worry, whistle, I’ll be there!

Although we knew the artist singing the words, we didn’t know from whence they came. But considering the close proximity of the damaged Pentagon, these were words we were only too happy to hear.

Credits: To Marian McPartland, for making her joy of music infectious, for bringing guests to a well-deserved audio spotlight, and for refusing to rest on hard earned laurels just because she’s 91. You are a beautiful lady. Thank you.