Kurt Elling & Joey Calderazzo | KNKX Studio Session
When asked if they’d looked to great albums of the past to inspire their vocals-piano duets tour, Kurt Elling and Joey Calderazzo answered quickly and definitively: “No.”
This KNKX Studio Session was a meeting of two great improvising minds. Their music is the result of pure collaboration, bringing more than 60 years of combined jazz experience together with no expectations.
The Chicago-native Elling has been at the top of the jazz vocal world from his earliest records, a modern musician with a mastery of standards and daring vocalese. A New Yorker, Calderazzo is best known for playing with saxophone icons Michael Brecker and Branford Marsalis. His several albums as a band leader have made him one of the most respected pianists in jazz, though not as well-known as Elling.
The connection between the two marks a bright moment in both of their impressive careers. These talented improvisors pushed and challenged each other through three great jazz standards in their performance at KNKX's Seattle studios.
- Starting with “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” Elling and Calderazzo kept the melody close while finding numerous opportunities to embellish and rearrange the Nat Cole classic.
- Billy Strayhorn’s beautiful ballad “Day Dream” received a similar treatment. Elling joked the 1939 composition was a “more modern” song, but the hip factor hit a crescendo with their set closer.
- Calderazzo and Elling played Thelonious Monk’s bebop favorite “Straight, No Chaser” with dramatic flair, leaving out or moving notes of the familiar but angular melody nearly into abstraction.
It was a thrilling sight for the audience as Elling leaned over the piano mere inches from Calderazzo’s smiling face. The pair shared their joyful, intimate performance with a grateful audience in the KNKX studios. Now it’s your turn.
Musicians:
- Kurt Elling - vocals
- Joey Calderazzo - piano
Songs:
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