Recording of the Week, Kurt Elling & Charlie Hunter - SuperBlue: The Iridescent Spree

Try and deny it all you might, but you’ll have to admit there’s always someone smoother than you – that is, unless you’re Miles Davis, as Kurt Elling helpfully informs us on ‘Freeman Square’, the second track on his new album, SuperBlue: The Iridescent Spree. The American jazz singer and songwriter has returned for the second of his collaborations with the mind-boggling guitarist, Charlie Hunter and we are delighted to welcome the pair back. With the unrelenting support of drummer Corey Fonville and DJ Harrison on keys, this pleasing combo once again delivers a harmonious blend of edifying wordplay and a hot buttered vibe that simply oozes funk.  

If SuperBlue (2021), the duo's previous album together, was an introductory handshake, then its sequel is the clincher that seals the all-important deal. Elling, a Chicagoan-based chanteur by trade, is perhaps one of the best-known male vocalists alive and kicking – he’s widely regarded as the most accomplished. This charming hipster has all the right amount of schmaltz you’d expect from an artist of such stature. His effortless baritone voice, instantly recognisable for its warm and silky texture, carries all the makings of a jazz legend. Like a 21st-century Sinatra, as a singer he confides in the listener without his majestic croons ever succumbing to a heightened sense of emotion. Coolness is the name of the game, and Elling owns it. 

Our recent Recording of the Week, Wolfgang Muthspiel's Dance of the Elders, featured a cover from Joni Mitchell’s seminal Hejira (1976); so too does The Iridescent Spree in the form of shuffling album-opener, ‘Black Crow’, which Elling adapts with a jagged sense of lyrical wizardry. Guest star Elena Pinderhughes is on top form, her aeronautical flute soaring even higher. We are subsequently introduced to the supreme horns of the Huntertones on ‘Naughty Number Nine’, a slow-roasted blues extolling the virtues of mental arithmetic. ‘Only The Lonely Woman’ is the wildest and most inventive reimagining of Ornette Coleman’s iconic tune from The Shape of Jazz to Come (1959) I’ve heard to date. Elling’s observant brand of vocalese (the addition of lyrics to a previously instrumental melody) is further complemented by his own hauntingly evocative self-penned text. Fonville’s tireless breakbeat lends itself remarkably well – such is the joy of SuperBlue; you tune in expecting one thing, but then, by delight, are surprised by the arrival of something completely different. At no point does the ambitious, kaleidoscopic and ultimately brave second outing feel like a wasted opportunity, one held back by the critical acclaim awarded its predecessor. In fact, this tried and tested collaboration proves in the face of all expectations that the bigger the risk, the more satisfying the reward.