Photo Coverage: Kurt Elling Celebrates Release of New Album at Birdland
Kurt Elling, the preeminent male vocalist in jazz, celebrated Passion World - his fifth album from Concord Records at Birdland last night and BroadwayWorld was there - check out photos below
For his most ambitious project yet, Elling casts his net far and wide around the globe, using songs rooted in Iceland (Bjork's "Who Is It") to Ireland (U2's "Where The Streets Have No Name"), France (Edith Piaf's "La Vie En Rose") to Brazil (Dorival Caymmi's "Você Já Foi à Bahia?") and beyond, to explore the passionate forces that shake our souls. Elling - a Grammy Award winner and 10-time Grammy Award nominee - will launch Passion World with a weeklong engagement at Birdland Jazz Club (315 West 44th Street in Manhattan) this week, June 10-13. Visit BirdlandJazz.com for more information.
As one of the busiest touring jazz artists, Elling has encountered these passions around the world; he has observed how the same depth of feeling is shaped in different ways by each unique culture through which it is filtered. The result is an album vibrant with diversity, and vast in its conceptual scope and its breadth of influences. Yet at the same time it's a singular celebration of what makes us all human.
It is also Elling's most star-studded album, featuring a small battalion of guest collaborators working in tandem with the singer's much-traveled quintet (keyboardist Gary Versace, guitarist John McLean, bassist Clark Sommers, drummer Kendrick Scott). The guests include the brilliant veteran trumpeter Cuban émigré Arturo Sandoval; the widely-lauded young vocalist Sara Gazarek; German trumpet star Till Brönner; French accordion virtuoso Richard Galliano; the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra and its founder-leader, saxophone savant Tommy Smith; and the world-renowned WDR Big|Brave Band and Orchestra from Germany, featuring pianist Frank Chastenier.
Photos by Stephen Sorokoff
Gary Versace, John McLean, Kurt Elling, Kendrick Scott
Gary Versace, John McLean, Kurt Elling, Kendrick Scott
Kelly Clinton-Holmes, Kurt Elling, Clint Holmes
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