On this episode of The Art of the Story, Leo Sidran chats with singer Kurt Elling about his Broadway debut in Hadestown.
Over a quarter century, Kurt Elling has established himself as perhaps the standout male jazz vocalist of his generation. With multiple Grammys and a decades long perch at the top of Critics and Readers polls, he is a relentless force, constantly creating, constantly in motion.
In the past year alone he has released three EPs of piano and vocal duos - featuring Kurt in musical conversation with Sullivan Fortner, Joey Calderazzo and Christian Sands - on his newly formed Big Shoulders label. The label name is a nod to his hometown, Chicago, where he is something of a musical hero.
Meanwhile, he’s been busy adapting the music of Weather Report, and recording with the WDR Big Band. And he is a coveted collaborator, working regularly in recent years with guitarist Charlie Hunter with their SuperBlue project, and appearing on any number of stages and recordings with the likes of Emmet Cohen, Kenny Barron and the Yellowjackets.
Trying to keep track of Elling is like trying to capture the sea in a net - he is seemingly everywhere. He doesn’t take any of his successes for granted.
“And I'm just really, really focused on gratitude at this point,” he says. “I worked all these years to try to get into a spot. I built my little perch and the audiences have been faithful and people have been so kind in receiving what I've tried to put out there. You know, 57 and I can sing maybe better than I ever have. And now this Broadway thing.”
The Broadway thing, as he describes it, appears to be the one reason he can find to stay put more or less for more than a few days at a time. He’s currently appearing as Hermes in the musical Hadestown on Broadway. (The show won a Tony for Best Musical in 2019, and Broadway legend Andre DeShields, who developed the role for Broadway took home his own Tony for it too.)
For Elling, the challenge of Broadway is a welcome one.
He says, “To have a new arena of creativity, welcome me and invite me…to be trusted with that, I really have got to hit this as hard as I possibly can.”
For a jazzman like Kurt who has dedicated his life to developing his own style and sound, and who lives on the edge of control and spontaneity, hitting the exact same mark eight shows a week is a responsibility. Fortunately, he says, Hadestown is the perfect fit for him.
“It is the right show. They've built in stylistic flexibility,” he explains. “They've built in interpretive room for it to flourish. You gotta say the words. Because it's this show, the amount of wiggle room and freedom and discovery that I'm being allowed, what to do with my hands, a look a give, the people I’m working with - they’re flexible.”
And while the physical demands of starring on Broadway might seem high, he says it’s nothing compared to a life on the road.
“It's three train stops and I'm at work” he boasts. “And I can walk home. And I'm in the same bed every night. Brother Broadway is technically, yeah. So much easier from not traveling and right now.”
But beyond the creative freedom and consistency of routine, for Elling, the show itself is the right fit at the right time.
“It’s got more than a love story in it,” says Kurt. “Everybody in this mythic world is dependent upon the artist, the hero completing the hero's journey successfully. The ordinary people trying to rise up and liberate themselves from a guy who has an endless hole in his heart and is trying to fill that hole by owning everything and everyone, and controlling everything and everyone sound familiar?”
Kurt Elling sounds familiar, and unexpected, and he’s appearing in Hadestown on Broadway now through February.
