Music

Winnipeg Free Press - ONLINE EDITION

Scatting cool cat Elling captures fans' attention

By: Chris Smith / Jazz

1/08/2009 11:23 AM | Comments: 0

I USUALLY dislike the term vocalist when what people really mean is singer, but in the case of Kurt Elling, who's riding a critical wave with his latest recording, Dedicated to You: Kurt Elling Sings the Music of Coltrane and Hartman, it fits the man as perfectly as one of his well-tailored suits.

He is a terrific singer, of course, but his appeal lies as much in his scatting and vocalese abilities, his way of reimagining a song, his sheer love of jazz.

And his hipster persona, which would seem campy in many others, fits him as well as, say, snugly as that same suit. A review in the New York Times last week referred to Elling as "the suave jazz-crooning dandy."

Elling has been recording since 1995 with many fine CDs to his name, but he is getting a lot of ink for Dedicated to You, his homage to the classic 1963 album John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman.

And while jazz is rich in singing -- think Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Billie Holiday, or a more contemporary Diana Krall -- male jazz singers are few and far between.

Elling, therefore, is an anomaly by profession. But he has built an impressive body of work, first for the Blue Note label and now on Concord (with Dedicated and 2007's successful Nightmoves).

And he has been able to remain distinctly Elling, no matter what style of music he may be singing, Take Dedicated, for example. He demonstrates the finesse of Hartman, the drive of Trane, yet sounds like no one else.

He plays the big halls and travels the world, but his May performance in Winnipeg was his third and he was booked for jazz festivals in Saskatoon, Edmonton, Vancouver and Victoria this summer. He's big, but not so big he won't play smaller markets.

He's one of the few sort-of boomers to capture the attention of fans. He reconstructs the Great American Songbook, and redoes the Guess Who's Undun. He really is a singer for his time, even as he pays tribute to the past.

* * *

Caught in the act: Singer Helen White and a wide array of musical friends in an eclectic performance at Mardi Jazz at Centre culturel franco-manitobain.

White mixed up the repertoire, from the American Songbook to original compositions of her own and a couple by an unnamed cousin. And she mixed up the instruments as well, starting with a standard rhythm section and adding guitar, percussion, cello and a couple of additional singers.

A standout was a duo performance by White, playing a single note on the piano and singing with percussionist Marie-Josée Clement on the classic jazz vocal tune Centerpiece. It's an easily recognizable tune (Everyone has heard the Lambert, Hendricks and Ross version, right?) and the new twist made it fresh.

As White said later, "It's certainly great fun to take a tune and switch it up like that. (Backup singers) Jodie (Borlé) and Malissa (Magorel) were both sitting in the audience itching to join in on Centerpiece. It would have been marvellous for them to come up and we could have had a spontaneous scat fest! May have gone on for a long time, though -- next time, maybe."

White, a transplanted Brit, has a lovely voice with a trace of her native land. She essays the classics such as Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise and Lullaby of Birdland with a mix of grace and verve. And she displays a real passion on her own compositions, such as Without a Reason, performed with Magorel and guitarist Ariel Posen.

Keep an eye out for White performing, and for the CD she has in the works.

* * *

Jazz composer George Russell, a MacArthur fellow whose theories influenced the modal music of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, died at 86, news services reported on Tuesday.

Russell, who taught at the New England Conservatory, died Monday in Boston of complications from Alzheimer's. He played drums in Benny Carter's band and later wrote Cubano Be/Cubano Bop for Dizzy Gillespie's orchestra. It premiered at Carnegie Hall in 1947 and was the first fusion of Afro-Cuban rhythms with jazz.

Russell developed the The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization in 1953. It's credited as the first theoretical contribution from jazz.

"Many of the advances and trends that have shaped jazz since the mid1940s were first heard in music composed and arranged by George Russell," New York Times critic Robert Palmer wrote in 1985.

Russell was leader on many recordings, including my favourites: New York, New York; Ezz-Thetics; Jazz Workshop; and George Russell Sextet at the Five Spot.

chris.smith@freepress.mb.ca

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