student blog

good advice/ Melea

I just downloaded ETHEL’s 2006 CD, Light, and I’d advise you to do the same.

The ETHEL string quartet brought the house down last Saturday night (along with the fabulous Kurt Elling and Ernie Watts), in what might have been the best performance I’ve ever seen at the Englert Theater. I’ve talked about being a sucker for strings in the past, but these guys totally blew me away. Talk about bending the rules- ETHEL is a rock ‘n’ roll string quartet through and through (hell, they even had temporary tattoos!) and added the perfect pizzicato punch to Elling’s soulful crooning.

Being a jazz vocalist myself, I’m already a licensed and registered Elling fan and I knew that my man wouldn’t leave me disappointed. What I wasn’t prepared for was how AMAZING both the ensemble and arrangements of the Coltrane/Hartman songs would be. Let’s just say that as soon as the live CD of this concert comes out (Elling said it would be released around June-ish), it’ll go directly into my Amazon cart.

Melea

snapped/ Anne

I was wearing a red dress with my hair delicately curled.  I brushed my bangs from my eye and gazed across the table.  He was not interested in dinner or the wine; instead he grabbed my hand and led me to the dance floor. 

Then, I embarrassingly snapped out of my daydream I was having during the Kurt Elling concert.

The show was “Dedicated to You” and you couldn’t help flirting with the idea that he was singing only to you.  Kurt Elling has an intoxicating stage presence and a captivating voice that can span over four octaves seemingly with ease.    

Following the performance I immediately went home and downloaded his Nightmoves album.   If you are interested in hearing Kurt Elling's music, you can listen to his music for free here.  Once you fall in love with the music, you’ll want to purchase it just as quickly as I did!

However, it wasn’t all about Kurt Elling.  Has anyone heard of Ernie Watts?  He is a two-time Grammy Award winner and one of the most charismatic saxophone players I’ve seen.  For personal reasons, I would love to see Ernie Watts and Bruce Springsteen have a jam session!

If you attended the show and didn’t get the chance to read Melea’s “The Power of Vocal Jazz – an Elling Appreciation,” do so.  Melea is amazingly talented and I’m sure you will enjoy reading it.

Until next time...let’s get excited for Time for Three and check out this clip!

watch this immediately / Melea

Howdy, y’all!

It’s great to be back on the UI campus after a long (but honestly, not long enough) winter break. Thankfully, Iowa has finally decided to remove itself from its residence in the Arctic Circle so at least it’s tolerable to spend more than 30 seconds outside

Despite the fact that I’m excited about wiping the slate clean with a brand new semester, it’s a little hard to get back into the swing of things. After dealing with all kinds of add/drop slip bureaucracy, I feel like it might be easier to just turn around and head back home while I still can. Ack. But at least the book buying and paper signing hassles of the first week are almost over, and I can relax this weekend by seeing one of my favorite working jazz singers take over the Englert.

Maybe you’ve heard of Kurt Elling….maybe you haven’t. If you fall into that latter group, I would highly suggest that you stop whatever you’re doing and watch this video immediately (and be sure to check out the drummer…amazing!)