wed 25/12/2024

CD: Kurt Elling - The Gate | reviews, news & interviews

CD: Kurt Elling - The Gate

CD: Kurt Elling - The Gate

Jazz priest-hipster lays some philosophical tracks on us

Kurt Elling: On his new album 'The Gate' the American Anglophile jazzer goes prog

Kurt Elling’s new one has the potential to push him out of the hermetic world of jazz insiderdom where he has been a big figure now for over a decade. It's produced with the right mixture of restraint and pizzazz by Don Was. Elling has sometimes been seen as the nearest thing to a successor to Frank Sinatra. His inventive ease dancing vocally over the strict metres, his charismatic ability to front a band, not to mention his sharp suits and his love of a killer melody are Sinatraesque.

Kurt Elling’s new one has the potential to push him out of the hermetic world of jazz insiderdom where he has been a big figure now for over a decade. It's produced with the right mixture of restraint and pizzazz by Don Was. Elling has sometimes been seen as the nearest thing to a successor to Frank Sinatra. His inventive ease dancing vocally over the strict metres, his charismatic ability to front a band, not to mention his sharp suits and his love of a killer melody are Sinatraesque.

Call me old-fashioned if I wish sometimes Elling would really let his hair down

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