Kurt Elling Quartet - St.James Church

[Freetoojazz]

Kurt Elling Quartet
St.James Church (Ste-Catherine Street)
May, 21st - 20H00 (Montréal, Canada)

First, an audiophile will look at the room. Large place, very height ceilling. A lot of wood on the wall. Big door in wood. Large stairs in wood. Beautiful place. The ceilling neet to be repair. Their some little hole (we can see again small band of wood) on it. I heard that to fix it will cost Million of dollars.

The man, the star of the night, a singer. A man with a great voice who can go through four octaves. He was nomited a lots of time for the Academy Awards. His alter-ego is the pianist Laurence Hogwood. This pianist made a record on Naim Labels with Charlie Haden call When the Heard Dances. I recommand it for testing your audio product, Great deep bass sound, beautiful playing.

The rest of the band, I didn't know them (drummer & doublebass). The place was not full, but was not empty. The seats of the floor was full, but not the balcony.

For someone like me who are familiar with this kind of artists, the night was very good. I heard someone who said that he can do more, and I agree with this person. He played only two not-ballad songs (but seems like a ballad), the rest of the night was only ballad. So I understand people who want more. What you have to look for when jazz musicians played together is the interaction, and in this night musicians played very good. If you only look at the singer, it's not enough. The others are important. the voice mix with the deep sound of the doublebass, when the piano play soft, the voice goes higher and with the piano goes fast, the singer stop singing or sing more faster. The interplay between them is what make a night happens.


They began at 20h00 and the finished at 22H00. And intermission of 15 minutes at 21H00. Two standing ovations.

[Suave]

Very nice little review of the show Freetoojazz - thank you for sharing with us!

Sounds like an enjoyable evening! I'll have to check out something like this in Toronto this summer.

Does anyone know of a good website where listings of such shows can be found?