Jazz singer Elling returns to his Chicago home
Twelve years ago, jazz singerKurt Elling left Chicago forNewYork.
Three months ago, he returned. Themove, says Elling, was prompted not by the pandemic, which has devastated NewYork, but by a longstanding desire to move back to the city where he launched his career.
Still, with manyNew Yorkers having left the city— as documented in various press reports— one has towonder whether the pandemicwas the catalyst that finally triggered themove.
“Jennifer and I had talked aboutmoving back every year thatwe lived inNewYork,” says Elling, referring to his wife, Jennifer Elling. “Itwas always a question of when was going to be right.
“The catalystwas thatmy daughter got into an arts high school” in Chicago.
Also in the mix: “Family concerns, grandparentswanting to enjoy them while they’re young and healthy,” explains Elling. “It just happened that the pandemic hit on the summer thatwe had already planned to come home.
“It made the move certainly more challenging and more dramatic. But itwas 11 years coming, sincewe only thoughtwe were going to be there (inNewYork) for a year.”
Before themove, Ellingwas identified as a Chicago singer whose art had been shaped on the bandstand by hometown giants such as saxophonists Von Freeman, Eddie Johnson and Edward Petersen. Elling’s longNewYork tenure dulled that profile, which he nowseems intent on sharpening.
When Elling began presenting his local “Porch Concerts” online over the summer, and when he recently opened his “25th Anniversary Virtual Concert Tour” online, his between-song commentary embraced his ties to this city and its globally admired
jazz scene.
Sowhy had he resettled inNewYork?
“I think it’s all too common for jazz musicians who are coming up towant to test their mettle” there, says Elling. “Wewant to see if you can find a place inNewYork that is yours.
“Iwanted to have something of what I think are sacred spaces— a neighborhood that belongs to me (and) friends that Imade myself and not just from passing through. As much as I love Chicago, New York has always been a force to be reckoned with.”
Quite apart fromgeography, however, Elling— like most musicians in the United States— temporarily has lost the home that’s central to his art: the stage. He played his last bona fide public concert inMarch in California, just before the coronavirus lockdown, and — again like most colleagues— has been contemplating the toll of that loss.
“As it has been for a lot of musicians, it’s been a psychological challenge,” says Elling. “Iwas upwards of 200 nights a year on the road before the pandemic. And to have that avenue of communication, vocation, sustenance so completely cut off, so suddenly— I think the hardest part for me has certainly been that I can’t engagemy vocation.
“I need to sing for certainly emotional reasons, for spiritual reasons, physiological reasons, for the sake ofmy sense of self in theworld, for friendship’s sake. If I’m not out there, some of these people I see only on these gigs.”
Elling released the album “Secrets Are the Best Stories” this year.
“I countmy blessings,” he says. “I’m not out on the street. I’m not scrambling in theway a lot of musicians are. Iwas able to take a step back for a second and try to figure out what I could contribute, rather than just clawmyway through something.”
What he came up with was the aforementioned “25th Anniversary Virtual Concert Tour,” a series of Friday-night livestreams fromthe Green Mill Jazz Club. That’s where thenBlueNote Records President Bruce Lundvall first heard Elling and decided to sign him in the summer of 1994.
I heard Elling several months before Lundvall did and alsowas struck by Elling’swork.
“The other ‘find’ of the eveningwas newcomer Kurt Elling, a singer who instantly— and justly— won over the huge crowd at the Jazz Showcase,” I wrote of a January 1994 performance. “His highspeed scat in music of TheloniousMonk (with ingenious lyrics by the great JonHendricks) and his unexpected whimsy in the old torch song ‘EverythingHappens toMe’ utterly disarmed his listeners.”
Aweek later, Elling told me of his surprise at how Chicago musicians had begun embracing him.
“When I began studying at theU. of C. (two years ago), I started sitting in with musicians in South Side places like Alexander’s SteakHouse and theNew Apartment Lounge,” Elling had said. “And I couldn’t believe it, but musicians like Eddie Johnson and Von Freeman and Ed Petersen and Paul Serrano kept pushing me on. … So I’m a singer now.
“I’m still trying to figure out exactly what it is I’m doing (vocally). I’m living in a basement, hustling for work, singing for society bands, trying to pay off student loans and eating sparingly. But this is the best time to be a jazz singer.
“I mean, howmany young male jazz singers are there now? Hardly any because they don’t teach jazz in the schools. So maybe the field is open.”
Ellingwas right about that, considering the dearth of great male jazz singers then and now. His first BlueNote album, “Close Your Eyes,” emerged as the most exciting jazz debut recording of 1995, propelling him to the front ranks of that era’s jazz vocalists. Several brilliant subsequent albums followed, aswell as some decidedly less interesting work.
But Elling certainlywas performing on all cylinders during his first “25th Anniversary Virtual Concert Tour” performance Oct. 9. Though his vocal tonewas a bit nasal and even at its best not exactly plush, his scat singing proved thrilling and his range of repertoirewide.
The Green Mill’s online concerts, which also include a “SaturdayNight at the Green Mill” series featuring other artists and hosted by Elling, are likely to benefit both singer and venue.
“It helps keep the joint at the forefront,” says Green Mill club owner Dave Jemilo. “It’s seen all over theworld, and it’s coming live fromthe Green Mill.
“It’s not like you’re putting on a slick show. It’s like you’re putting on a gig.”
Yet the production values— featuringwarm lighting and unobtrusive camerawork— exceed much of whatwe’re encountering online these days.
It all comes across as Elling’s somewhat belated but explicitly stated love song to Chicago, a city he has been reevaluating since his return.
“A lot has changed,” says Elling. “Most of the important things are still the same. Some of the saddest things are still the same.
“We still have the obvious problem with guns and gun violence in town. The city is still as beautiful aesthetically as it’s ever been, if not more so. … I’m hopeful.”
Why?
“Because Chicago is an incredibly resilient and tough city,” he says. “And I think that a lot of the brain drain or monetary drain that front-lineNew York is suffering just now, we’re not going to have as much because Chicago is an economically more livable city to begin with.”
Chicago, adds Elling, has been “my dream city from my earliest memories. It’s the sparkling, magnificent, architectural and artistic and culinary capital on the beautiful Lake Michigan. And withCOVID treating theworld theway that it is, and cities having to circle thewagons, Iwant to be home and help defendmy city. ”
With music.