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In just over ten years, Chicagoan Kurt Elling has risen to international prominence as a groundbreaking jazz artist, established himself as a composer and lyricist, and has gone on to write and direct critically acclaimed literary, artistic, and musical events. Every one of his recordings for the prestigious Blue Note label has been nominated for a Grammy Award, and he has been awarded Male Jazz Vocalist of the Year by DownBeat for seven consecutive years. He has won the Jazz Journalists' Association award for best male vocalist twice and earned the Prix Billie Holiday from the Academie du Jazz in Paris.

Elling's rich baritone voice spans four octaves and displays an astonishing technical facility and emotional depth. Elling has an awesome command of rhythm, texture, phrasing, and dynamics, often sounding more like a virtuoso jazz musician than a mere singer. His repertoire ranges from his own compositions to modern interpretations of standards, both of which can be the springboard for free form improvisation, scatting, spoken word, poetry, and rants. As composer and lyricist, Elling has written scores of his own compositions and set lyrics to the songs and improvised solos of many jazz masters.

One of Elling's major contributions is as a writer and performer of vocalese, the art of putting words to improvised solos of jazz artists. The natural heir to jazz pioneers Eddie Jefferson, King Pleasure, and Jon Hendricks, Elling is the contemporary voice in vocalese, setting the solos of Wayne Shorter, Keith Jarrett, Dexter Gordon, Pat Metheny, and others to his own deeply spiritual and compelling lyrics, an approach that reminds us of the beauty of the original music and opens us up to a fresh vision. Elling infuses his lyrics with passion, humor, and a startling intellectual depth, often incorporating images and references from writers such as Rilke, Proust, Kerouac, Rumi, and Kenneth Rexroth into his work.