Kurt Elling – Passion World
(Concord Records. CR- 36841. CD Review by Peter Jones)
Kurt Elling has never been one to fight shy of risk. Long stretches of vocalese? Try A New Body and Soul from the album Nightmoves. Notes seemingly held for minutes at a time? How about Higher Vibe from Man In The Air? For vocal acrobatics and jazz chops in general, Kurt’s your man. But here, on a musical voyage around the world, he stretches himself even further than usual. How about singing in five different languages? No problem – there are songs in Spanish, French, Portuguese and German, as well as English. And although he ducks the challenge of Icelandic, to be fair, Bjork did Who Is It? in English too.
And it isn’t only the languages, but the singing styles: on Si Te Contara by Cuban composer Félix Reina Altuna, Elling adopts the declamatory macho Hispanic vibrato, with all the theatrical passion one associates with male vocalists from this part of the world. On Loch Tay Boat Song, the style is softer, more reflective, with a rich accompaniment from Tommy Smith and the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, arranged by Florian Ross (who is German).
read more: http://news360.com/digestarticle/DS8K-KXNl0CYgspNbPVJrg
0 Comments:
Post a Comment