CURATION
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from this page:
by Matrix
Network Node
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Name:
Kurt Elling
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City/Place:
New York City
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Country:
United States
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Hometown:
Chicago, Illinois
Current News
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What's Up?
The Wall Street Journal said, “Elling combines authenticity with stunning originality.” The Washington Post declared that, “since the mid-1990s, no singer in jazz has been as daring, dynamic or interesting as Kurt Elling.”
Life
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Bio:
Celebrated for his distinctive blend of robust swing and poetic insight, Kurt Elling, a two-time GRAMMY winner, has firmly established himself as one of the premier jazz vocalists worldwide. Hailed by The New York Times as "the standout male vocalist of our time," Elling's illustrious career spans over twenty-five years of touring and recording, earning him accolades such as three Prix du Jazz Vocal (France), two German Echo Awards, and two Dutch Edison Awards. Notably, he has received sixteen GRAMMY nominations and held a remarkable 14-year reign atop the DownBeat Critics and Readers polls, garnering twelve Jazz Journalists Awards for "Male Vocalist of the Year."
Kurt Elling's instantly recognizable voice, characterized by a warm, rich baritone and an impressive four-octave range, captivates listeners as he seamlessly maneuvers between virtuosic improvisation and compelling storytelling. The Guardian (UK) aptly describes him as "a kind of Sinatra with superpowers" and recognizes him as "one of jazz's all-time great vocalists."
Throughout his career, Elling has collaborated with esteemed musicians such as Branford Marsalis, Danilo Perez, Stefon Harris, Fred Hersch, James Morrison, and Charlie Hunter. His performances extend to larger ensembles, including The Clayton/Hamilton Orchestra, The National Youth Orchestra (conducted by Sean Jones), The Bob Mintzer Big Band, The BBC Concert Symphony (led by Guy Barker), The Metropole Orchestra (Holland), The Irish Radio and Television Orchestra (conducted by Brian Byrne), The Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, and The WDR Orchestra and Big Band (Germany).
Elling's dynamic presence is significantly heightened by his consistent creation of fresh vocal material. He writes and records distinctive and definitive lyrics for compositions by foundational jazz figures such as John Coltrane, Keith Jarrett, Pat Metheny, Jaco Pastorius, Wayne Shorter, and Joe Zawinul. Beyond his role as a vocalist, Kurt Elling has co-developed multi-disciplinary performances for Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater and The City of Chicago. The world premiere of "The Big Blind," a new jazz musical in progress co-written by Elling and collaborator Phil Galdston ("Save The Best For Last"), took place at Jazz At Lincoln Center.
National Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky lauds Elling's art, noting that "In Kurt Elling’s art, the voice of jazz gives new spiritual presence to the ancient, sweet and powerful bond between poetry and music."
Elling's global touring spans diverse contexts, including performances for UNESCO-sponsored "International Jazz Day" in Havana, Cuba, St. Petersburg, Russia, Melbourne, Australia, and Washington DC. Notably, he has graced the White House stage twice, including a collaboration with the late Marvin Hamlisch and the National Symphony Orchestra for President Obama's inaugural State Dinner. Further showcasing his influence, Elling has held positions of leadership in the music industry, serving as a Trustee for six years and Vice Chairman for two years at The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
More
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Quotes, Notes & Etc.
Grammy Awards:
Best Jazz Vocal Album: Dedicated To You: Kurt Elling Sings the Music of Coltrane and Hartman
Best Jazz Vocal Album: Secrets Are The Best Stories, featuring Danilo Pérez
Grammy Nominations:
Best Alternative Jazz Album: SuperBlue: The Iridescent Spree
Best Jazz Vocal Album: SuperBlue featuring Charlie Hunter
Best Jazz Vocal Album: Secrets Are The Best Stories, featuring Danilo Pérez
Best Jazz Vocal Album: The Questions
Best Jazz Vocal Album: Upward Spiral, The Branford Marsalis Quartet with special guest Kurt Elling
Best Jazz Vocal Album: 1619 Broadway – The Brill Building Project
Best Jazz Vocal Album: The Gate
Best Jazz Vocal Album: Dedicated To You
Best Jazz Vocal Album: Nightmoves
Best Jazz Vocal Album: Man In The Air
Best Jazz Vocal Album: Flirting With Twilight
Best Jazz Vocal Album: Live In Chicago
Best Jazz Vocal Performance: This Time It’s Love
Best Jazz Vocal Performance: The Messenger
Best Jazz Vocal Performance: Close Your Eyes
Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying a Vocalist: “Easy Living” from Flirting With Twilight
(Arrangement by Kurt Elling and Laurence Hobgood)
DownBeat:
Critics Poll: Male Vocalist of the Year – 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023
Critics Poll: Talent Deserving Wider Recognition – 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000
Readers Poll: Male Vocalist of the Year – 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2018, 2019, 2020 (tie), 2021, 2022
JazzTimes:
Extended Critics’ Poll: Male Vocalist of the Year – 2018
Readers’ Poll: Male Vocalist of the Year – 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2018
Readers’ Poll: Best New Release – 2012: 1619 Broadway – The Brill Building Project
Jazz Journalists Association:
Male Singer of the Year – 2000, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2018, 2019, 2020
JazzWeek:
Record of the Year: The Gate – 2011
Vocalist of the Year – 2006
Edison Jazz/World, The Netherlands:
Jazz Vocal International: Kurt Elling featuring Danilo Perez Secrets Are The Best Stories – 2021
Edison Jazz Oeuvreprijs (Lifetime Achievement Award) – 2014
Jazz Vocal: Kurt Elling, The Gate – 2011
ECHO Jazz Prize, Germany:
International Ensemble of the Year: Branford Marsalis Quartet with special guest Kurt Elling, Upward Spiral – 2017
International Male Singer of the Year: Kurt Elling, The Gate – 2012
Jazz FM Awards:
International Jazz Artist of the Year – 2013
Académie du Jazz de Paris:
Prix du Jazz Vocal: The Questions – 2018
Prix Billie Holiday: Man In The Air – 2003
Prix Billie Holiday: The Messenger – 1997
Blue Note Milano:
Award of the Year – 2013
Scottish Jazz Awards:
International category – 2012
LOTOS Jazz Festival, Poland:
Aniol Jazzowy/Jazz Angel Artistic Prize – 2018
Silesian Jazz Festival, Poland:
Jazz Ambassador – 2012
Clips (more may be added)
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
Wolfram Mathematics
Bahia was final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other place on earth throughout all of human history...refuge for Sephardim fleeing the Inquisition...Indigenous both apart and subsumed into a sociocultural matrix which is all of these: a small-world matrix (see Wolfram). Human society, the billions of us, is small-world. Neural structures for human memory are small-world. This technological matrix positioning creators around the world within reach of each other and the entire planet is able to do so because it is also small-world...
In small worlds great things are possible.
Alicia Svigals
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"I'm truly thankful ... Sohlangana ngokuzayo :)"
—Nduduzo Makhathini (JOHANNESBURG): piano, Blue Note recording artist
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
"Very nice! Thank you for this. Warmest regards and wishing much success for the project! Matt"
—Son of Jimmy Garrison (bass for John Coltrane, Bill Evans...); plays with Herbie Hancock and other greats...
Dear friends & colleagues,
Having arrived in Salvador 13 years earlier, I opened a record shop in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for Bahian musicians, many of them magisterial but unknown.
David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR found us (above), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (he's a huge jazz fan), David Byrne, Oscar Castro-Neves... Spike Lee walked past the place while I was sitting on the stoop across the street drinking beer and listening to samba from the speaker in the window...
But we weren't exactly easy for the world-at-large to get to. So in order to extend the place's ethos I transformed the site associated with it into a network wherein Brazilian musicians I knew would recommend other Brazilian musicians, who would recommend others...
And as I anticipated, the chalky hand of God-as-mathematician intervened: In human society — per the small-world phenomenon — most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other. Likewise, within a network of interlinked artists as I've described above, most of these artists will in the same manner be at most a handful of steps away from each other.
So then, all that's necessary to put the Bahians and other Brazilians within possible purview of the wide wide world is to include them among a wide wide range of artists around that world.
If, for example, Quincy Jones is inside the matrix (people who have passed are not removed), then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.
...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required. Real intelligence, yes.
Years ago in NYC I "rescued" unpaid royalties (performance & mechanical) for artists/composers including Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Mongo Santamaria, Jim Hall, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd (for his rights in Bob Marley compositions; Clement was Bob's first producer), Led Zeppelin, Ray Barretto, Philip Glass and many others. Aretha called me out of the blue vis-à-vis money owed by Atlantic Records. Allen Klein (managed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles) called about money due the estate of Sam Cooke. Jerry Ragovoy (Time Is On My Side, Piece of My Heart) called just to see if he had any unpaid money floating around out there (the royalty world was a shark-filled jungle, to mangle metaphors, and I doubt it's changed).
But the pertinent client (and friend) in the present context is Earl "Speedo" Carroll, of The Cadillacs. Earl went from doo-wopping on Harlem streetcorners to chart-topping success to working as a custodian at PS 87 elementary school on the west side of Manhattan. Through all of this he never lost what made him great.
Greatness and fame are too often conflated. The former should be accessible independently of the latter.
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
Recent access to this matrix and Bahia are from these places (a single marker can denote multiple accesses).
Across the creative universe... For another list, reload page.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
For a complete list of everybody inside, tap TOTAL below:
TOTAL
Nduduzo Makhathini
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Matt Garrison
RÁDIO MATRIX