SuperBlue: The Iridescent Spree (Edition)
Kurt Elling
Released September 15, 2023
Grammy Nominee for Best Alternative Jazz Album 2024
JAZZ.FM91 Best Jazz Albums of 2023
Jazzwise Top 50 Albums of the Year 2023
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mb6vlIj-t6ahsKEuMT5xB1_x7GXpznn5Q
Spotify:
About:
SuperBlue: The Iridescent Spree is the highly anticipated followup to the 2021 GRAMMY nominated eponymous album, by genre-bending trailblazers Kurt Elling & Charlie Hunter. Joining forces with multi-instrumentalist duo drummer Corey Fonville and bassist-keyboardist DJ Harrison (of Richmond, VA-based jazz-funk fusion quintet Butcher Brown) for a kaleidoscopic collection of new songs, surprising covers, and dynamic reinventions, these are all animated by crafty production, crack musicianship, and Elling’s instantly identifiable vocal prowess. If the first album was a somewhat radical departure for Elling, SuperBlue: The Iridescent Spree is more of an exquisite progression upon the template. Equally informed by R&B, neo-soul, classic pop, psychedelic poetry, rowdy funk, and of course jazz in all its many guises, songs like the ebullient, anthemic “Freeman Square” and the simmering, brass-blasted “Not Here/Not Now” are layered with Elling’s inventive lyricism, their supple swing and rhythmic elasticity rife with wit, pathos, and a wry sense of the human experience.
GRAMMY® Award-winner Kurt Elling is without question today’s preeminent male jazz vocalist, renowned worldwide for his unparalleled virtuosity and flair for trailblazing artistic exploration. From his stunning reinvention of timeless standards to his own captivating original songcraft, the Chicago-based musician has fused his dazzling talents across a panoply of musical approaches, emblazoning each with signature imagination, insight, and emotional intelligence.
With multiple Grammy nominations, two Grammy Wins as well as three Prix du Jazz Vocal, two German Echo, and two Dutch Edison Awards, the storytelling and force of nature Jazz artist is flying high now with a sense of unpredictability.
Track Listing:
1. Black Crow 03:34
2. Freeman Square 05:14
3. Naughty Number Nine 03:13
4. Little Fairy Carpenter 04:58
5. Bounce It 04:21
6. Only The Lonely Woman 05:38
7. Right About Now 04:07
8. Not Here / Not Now 04:15
9. The Afterlife 05:52
10. Goin’ To Chicago 04:01
Personnel:
Kurt Elling: voice
Charlie Hunter: hybrid Guitar
DJ Harrison: keyboards
Corey Fonville: drums
Guests
Elena Pinderhughes: flute (track 1)
Huntertones Horns (tracks 3, 5, 8): Jon Lampley: trumpet; Dan White: saxophone & horn arrangements; Chris Ott: trombone
Recorded February 2022, at Montrose Studios, by Adrian Olsen & Curtis Fye and at Transient Sound Studios (track 8), by Vijay Tellis-Nayak
Mixed by Adrian Olsen
Mastered by Dave McNair
Photography by Angus McDonald
Art Direction: Oli Bentley & Split
Produced by Kurt Elling, Charlie Hunter, Corey Fonville & DJ Harrison
Executive Producers: Dave Stapleton & Bryan Farina
Review:
From shining fresh light on beloved standards via new lyrics penned for Ornette Coleman’s ‘Lonely Woman’, to wry ruminations on mortality via a setting of Billy Collins’ ‘The Afterlife’, which allows the deceased to inhabit the exact world they imagined (“Some have already joined the celestial choir and are singing as if they have been doing this forever”); on SuperBlue: The Iridescent Spree Kurt Elling continues to ask the questions with an all-embracing compassion and poignancy.
As heard on the Elling/Don Was/Phil Galdston collab, ‘Freeman Square’, the grooves and arrangements supplied by Charlie Hunter, and Butcher Brown’s Corey Fonville and DJ Harrison appear deeper, more seasoned, more lived in. Excerpted from Joni Mitchell’s classic 1976 album, Hejira, the quartet’s exploration of imaginative possibilities is heard in a marble-smooth reworking of ‘Black Crow’, which is also graced by the wonderful playing of flautist, Elena Pinderhughes. It’s typical of Elling that his first dip into the repertoire of the late, great Bob Dorough eschews the more obvious songs such as ‘Devil May Care’ or ‘I’m Hip’ in favour of the little-covered ‘Naughty Number Nine’ (from Schoolhouse Rock!).
Whether lovingly caressing the lyrics of Ron Sexsmith’s ‘Right About Now’ or appending dexterous wordplay onto Nate Smith’s ‘Bounce’ (a track which served as an instrumental interlude on the Elling/Hunter EP Guilty Pleasures released earlier this year, which here becomes ‘Bounce It’), Elling’s visceral storytelling continues to dazzle.
Peter Quinn (Jazzwise)
