Thought I’d add a quick post about this album. Kurt Elling is a great Jazz vocal talent, I’ve heard it mentioned he is ‘a baritone with four octaves’, this certainly sounds like it when you hear him live. The album ‘Dedicated to you’ is a very good album, firstly it has great standards on there: ‘All or nothing at all’, ‘Lush life’, ‘Nancy with the laughing face’ and others. The next thing to marvel at is the arrangements, Laurence Hobgood, Elling’s regular collaborater has put together arrangements featuring himself on piano with his regular trio, but with the addition of a string quartet and saxophonist Ernie Watts. Finally there is Elling himself, an easy to listen to voice that has a bit of the ‘Sinatra swagger’ as well as the scat style and improvised qualities of a typical jazz instrumentalist.
The album is a tribute to the six track Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane album, the rest of the tracks are taken from Coltrane’s ‘Ballads’ album. The other great feature is the album is live.
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He has an amazing range. This album should be a good listen to Hartman and Coltrane fans. This sounds very exciting indeed. People need to listen to this vocalist.
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