Kurt Elling

Jazz singer Kurt Elling burst into view in the ’90s with a voice that could leap octaves with impunity and possessed an almost unnatural fluidity. Born in Chicago in 1967, he had a choirmaster father and grew up as a choir singer, but he had a love of jazz singing that charted his course. His 1995 debut album, Close Your Eyes, showed off his ability to croon, scat or deliver dazzling vocalese as his muse dictated, and it earned Elling the first of his many Grammy nominations. Influenced by bop, beat poetry, classical music and more, Elling has taken material by artists as varied as Bob Dylan, The Drifters and King Crimson, and completely transformed it according to his mercurial vision. Partnering with Branford Marsalis, Charlie Hunter and others, he has built a beguiling, constantly shifting body of work, winning two Best Jazz Vocal Album Grammys over his first three decades of recording.