Kurt Elling, With a Little Danish on the Side

Friday October 21, 2011

From The Chicago Examiner

A U.S. premiere: Kurt Elling in Chicago, with a little Danish on the side
By: Neil Tesser

It’s been a pretty good year for Kurt Elling fans in Chicago. With this weekend’s appearance, and counting earlier visits to the Green Mill, the Old Town School of Folk Music, and Symphony Center (for the “United Sounds of America” series in June), he’ll have spent more time haunting his old homestead than in any year since he moved to New York in 2008.

Elling and his well-honed quartet, led as always by the brilliant pianist Laurence Hobgood, are back at the Green Mill this weekend for their fourth Chicago gig in 2011. But this time he’s brought along a few friends – 18 of them, in fact, in the form of Klüvers Big Band from Denmark. The band makes its U.S. debut with two nights in Chicago before heading to New York, Boston, and Washington, DC.

(In New York, Elling and Klüvers will celebrate his imminent 44th birthday at Birdland with an extraordinary series of nightly guest artists: alto saxist Miguel Zenon; tenorists Lew Tabackin and Ravi Coltrane; trombonist Robin Eubanks; and vibist Stefon Harris.)

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