| Close Your Eyes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 1995 | |||
| Recorded | February 14 - November 2, 1994 | |||
| Genre | Vocal jazz | |||
| Length | 62:21 | |||
| Label | Blue Note | |||
| Kurt Elling chronology | ||||
| ||||
Close Your Eyes is the debut studio album by Kurt Elling, released in 1995. [1]
At the 38th Grammy Awards Elling was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance for Close Your Eyes.
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |    [1] |
| The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings | [2] |
The Allmusic review by Michael G. Nastos awarded the album four stars, and said "Chicago vocalist Elling pushes the envelope, challenging listeners and his musicians with beat poetry, ranting, and his Mark Murphy-ish singing. There's quite a bit of dramatist/actor in Elling, although the romantic in him is also pretty prevalent...There's clearly more in store for Elling as he matures, but this is as auspicious a vocal jazz debut as the world has heard.a worthy statement from Elling, who shows yet again that vocal jazz can be more than just easy listening" [1]
Paul Wertico is an American drummer. He gained recognition as a member of the Pat Metheny Group from 1983 until 2001, leaving the group to spend more time with his family and to pursue other musical interests.
Kurt Elling is an American jazz singer and songwriter.
Man in the Air is the sixth album by jazz vocalist Kurt Elling, recorded and released in 2003 by Blue Note Records.
Make a Jazz Noise Here is a live double album by Frank Zappa. It was first released in June 1991, and was the third Zappa album to be compiled from recordings from his 1988 world tour, following Broadway the Hard Way (1988) and The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life (1991). The album's cover art was made by Larry Grossman.
John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman is a studio album featuring John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman released by Impulse! Records in July or August 1963. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2013.
Nightmoves is a 2007 jazz album by vocalist Kurt Elling. It was the first Elling album to be released by Concord Records.
The Road to You is the second live album by the Pat Metheny Group that won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Performance.
Live in Chicago is a 1999 live album by jazz vocalist Kurt Elling. It was Elling's first live album, recorded over two nights in 1999 at Chicago's Green Mill jazz club. As musical guest appears jazz singer Jon Hendricks on two tracks, "Don't Get Scared" and "Goin' to Chicago", which Hendricks announces himself. Three tenor saxophonists, Von Freeman, Ed Petersen and Eddie Johnson, at once Elling invites on the stage for "The Rent Party", introducing the musicians over five minutes by improvising descriptions of their sound and personality with each one respectively responding to his words. On two further tracks percussionist Kahil El'Zabar is featured.
Dedicated to You: Kurt Elling Sings the Music of Coltrane and Hartman is a 2009 live album by Kurt Elling, recorded at the Lincoln Center's American Songbook series.
34th N Lex is an album by Randy Brecker, released through ESC Records on April 22, 2003. In 2004, the album won Brecker the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album.
The Gate is a 2011 studio album by Kurt Elling, produced by Don Was. on November 30, 2011, the album received a Nomination in 54th Grammy Awards for Best Jazz Vocal Album.
Flirting with Twilight is a 2001 studio album by Kurt Elling.
This Time It's Love is a 1998 studio album by jazz vocalist Kurt Elling, accompanied as usual by Laurence Hobgood on piano, Rob Amster on bass, and on drums Michael Raynor, who replaces Paul Wertico for the most part. On five of the twelve tracks guest musicians were invited, like guitarist David Onderdonk or Chicagoan veteran jazz musicians, violinist Johnny Frigo and Eddie Johnson. Hobgood and Elling co-produced the recording with Wertigo as associate. Elling's third album was again released on the Blue Note label, which initially asked him "to do something more on the romantic side", as Elling writes in the liner notes. The album's repertoire is predominantly standard material with two songs added that were already played by the band, the lauded "Freddie's Yen for Jen" and McCoy Tyner's "My Love, Effendi" with lyrics by Elling, and "Where I Belong", another original. The bossa nova classic "Rosa Morena" by Dorival Caymmi is the first song Kurt Elling recorded in a foreign language, accompanied here just by acoustic guitar and bass.
The Messenger is the second studio album by Kurt Elling. Like Close Your Eyes the album was released by Blue Note, the production credits lie with pianist Laurence Hobgood, Elling himself and drummer Paul Wertico as co-producer. Hobgood, bassist Rob Amster and Wertico are co-billed on the album cover, establishing the piano trio –led by Hobgood up to 1619 Broadway from 2012– as the singers core backing. Amster and Wertico are nevertheless replaced on some tracks by Eric Hochberg and percussionst Jim Widlowski. A further voice is added on half of the tracks, trumpet player Orbert Davis, tenor saxophonists Edward Petersen or Eddie Johnson, and on one track literally, with Cassandra Wilson on "Time of the Season". On this song and part of the so-called 'Suite' one can also hear a guitarist, who unfortunately is not mentioned in the album credits. Besides The Zombies 1967 hit The Messenger introduces "Nature Boy" to Ellings' repertoire, two further jazz standards, an interpretation of Jimmy Heath' "Gingerbread Boy", played even more aggressive and faster as Miles Davis, and "Tanya" written by Donald Byrd, who recorded the tune only once in 1964 for Dexter Gordon's album One Flight Up. The song is informed by an ostinato of moody open chords played on piano resolved occasionally by a rather conventional hard bop theme. All other tracks are penned by the musicians themselves or even improvised like "It's Just a Thing" accompanying a story Elling declaims.
1619 Broadway: The Brill Building Project is a 2012 album by Kurt Elling, recorded as a tribute to the songwriters of the Brill Building in New York City.
Big Boss Band is the 1990 studio album of George Benson on Warner Bros. featuring the Count Basie Orchestra. This is Benson's second consecutive album which returns to his jazz roots after his successful pop career in the 1980s, and also his debut as sole producer of an album. The genre is mainly big band swing with some Michel Legrand and R&B thrown in.
Connection is an album by trumpeter/bandleader Don Ellis recorded in 1972 and released on the Columbia label. The album features big band arrangements of pop hits of the day along with Ellis' "Theme from The French Connection" which won him a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement in 1973
Laurence Hobgood is a contemporary jazz piano virtuoso, composer, arranger, producer, lyricist and educator. Perhaps best known for his twenty-year collaboration with vocalist Kurt Elling, Hobgood has had a varied and dynamic career. In addition to his prowess at the piano he's identified by many as a key player in the imaginative updating of the "American Songbook", particularly in his arranging for vocalists; his stylized re-imagining of both classic songbook repertoire and more recent artists' work has had a far-ranging influence within the jazz world and beyond.
Bad for Me is the fourth studio album by American jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater, released in 1979 on Elektra Records. The album reached at No. 29 on the Cashbox Top Jazz Albums chart and No. 30 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart.
Jim Gailloreto is an American saxophonist, composer, and group leader from Chicago whose string arrangements were heard on Kurt Elling's Grammy Award–winning CD Dedicated To You.
