Kurt Elling Quintet with special guest Ernie Watts
2:00–3:15PM, Mack Avenue Records Pyramid Stage
Kurt Elling is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost jazz vocalists. The Grammy Award winner has spent the last eleven years atop the DownBeat Critics poll and has topped the JazzTimes Readers’ poll five times. He has also won the Jazz Journalists Association Award for “Male Singer of the Year” on six occasions and received the “Prix Billie Holiday” from the Académie du Jazz in Paris. The Washington Post declared, “Since the mid-1990s, no singer in jazz has been as daring, dynamic or interesting as Kurt Elling. With his soaring vocal flights, his edgy lyrics and sense of being on a musical mission, he has come to embody the creative spirit in jazz.”
In addition to leading a regular quartet that features pianist Laurence Hobgood, Elling has recorded and/or performed with an array of artists that includes Terence Blanchard, Dave Brubeck, The Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, Benny Golson, Jon Hendricks, Fred Hersch, Charlie Hunter, Al Jarreau, David Liebman, Joe Lovano, Christian McBride and many others.
The set features Elling’s collaborator, pianist Lawrence Hobgood, as well as John McLean (guitar), Harish Raghavan (bass), Ulysses Owens (drums) and special guest Ernie Watts, a two-time Grammy Award winner. Watts is one of the most versatile and prolific saxophonists on the scene and has been featured on over 500 recordings by artists ranging from Cannonball Adderley to Frank Zappa.
