Flirting With Twilight
Kurt Elling
(Blue Note – 2001)
by Dick Bogle
Kurt Elling is the very best of a very rare breed male jazz singers. It takes not a stretch of any definition of jazz to realize that this Chicago-based interpreter of music is every bit the jazz vocalist anyone ever was.
“You Don’t Know What Love Is” is a prime example. He bends and holds notes much like a saxophone, but at the same time never altering the message of the lyric.Instead, he brings the lyric into bold relief.
The fabulous Laurence Hobgood is right here on piano, playing his usual gorgeous solos and so perfectly behind Elling. Other tunes include: “Detour Ahead,” “Moonlight Serenade,” “Blame It On My Youth,” “I’m Through with Love” and more.
Reprinted with kind permission of The Skanner.