Available now, devoted to You : Kurt Elling Sings the Music of Coltrane and Hartman, is Kurt Elling's eighth overall album and 2nd release on Contract Jazz. The live collection was recorded in Jan 2009 in Manhattan as an element of Lincoln Center's American Songbook series.

The 12-track release features an all-star cast of musicians including sax player Ernie Watts, the Laurence Hobgood Threesome and the string quartet, ETHEL. Kurt Elling is the preeminent young male jazz vocalist today. NIGHTMOVES, Elling's first recording for Bargain / Universal will launch his career to new heights. This follows a ten-year stretch that saw Elling earn 7 GRAMMY proposals for 6 Blue Note albums, 6 successive years at the very top of the Down Beat Critics and Jazz Times Readers ' polls, 3 Jazz Newshouds ' organisation Awards for Best Male Vocalist and the Prix Billie Vacation from the Academie du Jazz in Paris. His quartet has did a tour of the world, performing to vital commend in Europe, the Middle East, South America, East Asia and Australia, and at jazz holidays and concert halls across the Northern America. As well as working with his very own quartet, Kurt Elling has spent recording and / or performing time with an array of artists that includes Terrence Blanchard, Dave Brubeck, The Clayton / Hamilton Orchestra, Benny Golson, Jon Hendricks, Fred Hersch, Charlie Hunter, Al Jarreau, David Liebman, Joe Lovano, Christian McBride, Marian McPartland, The Bob Mintzer Giant Band, Mark Murphy, John Pizzarelli, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and The Yellowjackets. He has written multidisciplinary artworks for The Steppenwolf Theater and for the Town Of Chicago. Also , Kurt Elling is a previous State Trustee and State Vice Chair of the nation's Academy of Recording humanities and Sciences ( The GRAMMYS ) and was artist-in-residence for the Monterey Jazz Festival's 2006 season. Kurt Elling's rich baritone voice spans 4 octaves and displays an astonishing technical facility and emotional depth.

Elling has an incredible command of rhythm, texture, phrasing, and dynamics, frequently sounding more of a diva jazz musician than a mere vocalist. His collection goes from his very own compositions to modern interpretations of standards, each of which might be the springboard for free form improvisation, scatting, spoken word and poetry. As composer and lyricist, Elling has written scores of his very own compositions and set words to the tracks and improvised solos of many jazz pros. As well as the compositional work he has done with the collaborator-in-chief, Laurence Hobgood, Elling has collaborated in the creating of new pieces with Jon Clayton, Fred Hersch, Bob Mintzer, Charlie Hunter and Orbert Davis, amongst others. One of Kurt Elling's big contributions is as a writer and performer of vocalese, the art of putting words to improvised solos of jazz artists. The natural successor to jazz front-runners Eddie Jefferson, King Pleasure, and Jon Hendricks, Elling is the up to date voice in vocalese, setting the solos of Wayne Shorter, Keith Jarrett, Dexter Gordon, Pat Metheny, and others to his very own awfully non secular and compelling words, an approach that reminds us of the wonderful thing about the first music and opens us up to a fresh vision.

Elling suffuses his words with eagerness, humor, and a surprising intellectual depth, regularly incorporating photographs and references from writers like Rilke, Proust, Kerouac, Rumi, Neruda and Kenneth Rexroth into his work. Kurt Elling has been featured in profiles for CBS Sunday Morning, for CNN, and in lots of paper and mag reviews and articles.

The NY Times called his shows at the Birdland good, battering entertainment. Said the Chicago Tribune, Kurt Elling is going to switch many listeners' minds on the meaning and point of Jazz singing. Rich kid Mag named Elling the male Jazz vocalist of the Nineties. more lately, The Guardian ( UK ) announced, Elling is an omnicompetent artist of about ruthless potency ... ( He ) is truly a musical phenomenon. And Jazz Review ( UK ) raised the chance that Elling might be the best male Jazz vocalist of all time..