In the 30 years since his Blue Note Records debut, Kurt Elling has racked up just about every kind of experience available to a modern jazz singer. Crowned “Male Vocalist of the Year” in the DownBeat Critics Poll for more than a dozen consecutive years, he has recorded not only for Blue Note but also Concord, OKeh and Edition. Now in partnership with his longtime manager, Bryan Farina, he’s launching Big Shoulders Records, an independent label with distribution through The Orchard.
The label’s first release, which has its world premiere at WRTI, is an exhilarating take on “Steppin’ Out,” the 1982 Joe Jackson hit. It’s the first single from an album Elling recorded with the WDR Big Band, which will be released on Big Shoulders this fall.
Elling previously recorded the song with a small combo on his 2011 album The Gate, which was produced by Don Was for Concord. This arrangement, by Michael Abene, preserves a mischievous note substitution that ends the first line of every verse (an idea Elling borrowed, with due credit, from Nicholas Payton). But it also builds a dynamic big band framework for Elling’s performance, including a go-for-broke scat chorus.
“I’ve been very fortunate to have a longstanding relationship with WDR,” Elling tells WRTI. “Obviously they’re a mighty, mighty crew, and they’ve been very generous with me over the years in commissioning charts from Michael Abene and Bob Mintzer and Jim McNeely — just the top guys. And these charts have been such a beautiful gift to me when I play with big bands, because the charts are gorgeous, and they’re bespoke. They really are helping to delineate a signature sound as I go out into the world.”
The forthcoming album with WDR will also include arrangements of the Wayne Shorter classic “Speak No Evil” and a Joe Zawinul ballad for Weather Report titled “Current Affairs,” both featuring Elling’s signature vocalese lyrics. “And there will be a John Scofield thing that a friend of mine, Nina Clark, wrote a great lyric to, that’s got the boogaloo all up in it,” Elling adds. “So while I’ve made a study of the past, I’m trying to do that which hasn’t been done yet, and have that be a real statement.”
Along with the new label, Farina is announcing Big Shoulders Artist Services, which will support its clients with management, marketing, and career development. Along with Elling, the company’s artist roster includes pianists Fred Hersch, Christian Sands and Julius Rodriguez; trumpeter Marquis Hill; vibraphonists Joel Ross and Sasha Berliner; tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana; and singers Sara Gazarek and Cyrille Aimée.
“I’ve worked with different people at different labels,” Farina tells WRTI. “And it’s often really difficult to balance all the different types of relationships you have to have, with the various outfits. It’s just like: ‘OK, this person does this, and this person does that — but nobody does this part?’ So we’re trying to get the straightest line to having the music released and helping the artist do what they want to do, on their timeline.”
Elling and Farina have been leaning toward independence for some time — certainly since last year, when they made a pair of quick duo EPs under the title Wildflowers. (The first, featuring pianist Sullivan Fortner, earned a Grammy nod.) That move underscored a nimble model that contrasts in some instructive ways with Elling’s three-decade experience as a recording artist.
“I want to work with people who are one hundred percent emotionally invested in the project,” he says. “I want to work with the smartest people I can. And I am grateful to all of these past partners, and have learned a lot from all of them — but I’ve learned enough to know that you don’t have to have all that infrastructure. You don’t have to pay all those people, or they don’t have to take as much of a cut. You don’t have to give your masters away.”
“I know what I’m doing to make a record,” he adds. “I know who I want to call. I don’t need a producer in the room, 90% of the time — and when I do, there’s going to be a specific reason, not because a record company tells me I’ve got to do it.”
Along with the WDR Big Band album, Big Shoulders will release new music this year by SuperBlue, the groove outfit that Elling jointly leads with guitarist Charlie Hunter. Elling says he’s also excited to provide a spotlight for some of the hungry young talent he’s been encountering on the scene in Chicago.
Meanwhile, Elling will soon embark on a tour that celebrates the music of Weather Report, with partners including one of that band’s former drummers, Peter Erksine, and the pianist Joey Calderazzo. “Kurt Elling Celebrates Weather Report” will appear at Birdland in New York from March 26 through 29; at the South Orange Performing Arts Center in New Jersey on April 3; and at Kutztown University on April 9. For a complete schedule, visit kurtelling.com.
