aaamusic | On 10, Feb 2011

KURT ELLING

with special guest Richard Galliano

and The Scottish National Jazz Orchestra

Monday 14^th March 2011

Barbican Hall, 7.30pm

Tickets £15-25

Box Office: 0845 120 7550 www.barbican.org.uk/contemporary

Barbican Centre Silk, Street London EC2Y 8DS

“Since the mid-1990s, no singer in jazz has been as daring, dynamic or interesting as Kurt Elling. With his soaring vocal flights, his edgy lyrics and sense of being on a musical mission, he has come to embody the creative spirit in jazz.” Washington Post

Kurt Elling has attained elite status in the jazz world.  A tremendous live performer, his breathtaking technique, imagination, and impeccable choice of repertoire and an undeniable hipness has captivated a new generation of jazz fans, and propelled him to international prominence.

In a celebration of the release of his brand new recording, The Gate – this special concert brings the many facets of today’s premier male jazz voice, and eleven times DownBeat award-winner back to London.

Released in March on Concord, The Gate points Elling in a new musical direction. Working with producer Don Was (Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan), Elling makes deeply personal statements through new arrangements of tracks by King Crimson, Joe Jackson, Stevie Wonder and the Beatles, in addition to providing a new and vibrant understanding of Miles Davis, Bill Evans and Herbie Hancock.

Tonight’s performance includes music from the new recording, plus a mouth-watering dimension in the first European performance of a landmark collaboration with virtuoso French accordionist Richard Galliano.  Renowned for his interpretations of Astor Piazzolla’s music, Galliano continues to  explore a vast range of music, without ever losing the lyrical quality of the ballads he recorded with Gonzalo Rubalcaba and Charlie Haden or the French Touch, which allowed him to make the link between Billie Holiday and Edith Piaf, with the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis.

As one journalist wrote of last years concert at the Lincoln Centre “Elling and Galliano took us on a fabulous artistic trip around the world: from New York to Paris, from Rome to Buenos Aires, from Berlin to Madrid, and back to New York, the audience was spoiled with passionate swings of jazz. The songs were mellow and effervescent at the same time – somewhere between Frank Sinatra and Bossa Nova. Selections of love songs from all corners of the world, and from different time periods left the audience in awe, as the evening closed with a standing ovation.”

In the second set, following a short Scottish tour with Elling, The Scottish National Jazz Orchestra add their mighty big band sound to arrangements of his back catalogue of works, classics from the Great American Songbook, and material from The Gate, setting the seal on an evening that toasts one of the vocal greats of the current century.