Sep 22, 2026 12:26 PM
Hyde Park Jazz Fest on Chicago’s South Side to Present 20th Edition
The Hyde Park Jazz Festival will take place for the 20th time on the final weekend of September 2026. Beginning half…
Branford Marsalis (left) and Kurt Elling will release the album Upward Spiral via Marsalis Music/OKeh Records on June 10. (Photos: Courtesy DL Media)
(Photo: )The album, Marsalis’ first new leader project since 2014’s In My Solitude (Marsalis Music/Sony Masterworks), reunites the pioneering saxophonist with his longtime quartet, made up of pianist Joey Calderazzo, bassist Eric Revis and drummer Justin Faulkner. The group’s previous album, Four MF’s Playing Tunes, was released in August 2012, and earned a 4-star review in the October 2012 issue of DownBeat.
Recorded during a weeklong session in New Orleans, the album is a collection that blends Great American Songbook staples, modern jazz standards and popular music mainstays from a diverse array of composers.
In an announcement from the record label, Marsalis explained that the goal from the outset of this project was to create a true feeling of partnership.
“I usually reject the word ‘collaboration,’” Marsalis said, “because it implies a third thing from that which each collaborator does well. I don’t need a collaborator to do what I normally do, and Kurt doesn’t, either. But this time, none of us were going to do what we normally do. The goal here, even though he sings lyrics, was to highlight Kurt’s voice as an instrument.”
Elling, who released the album Passion World on Concord in 2015, welcomed the opportunity to record with Marsalis’ quartet.
“I love singing with a hard-hitting band,” he said. “I didn't want Branford’s band to feel that it had to hold back because a singer was there. To be welcomed into the quartet’s circle, which is all about new challenges and hard blowing, was very important to me. When I asked Branford what to bring about a week before the date, he said ‘Don't worry, you’ve got the thing.’ So I brought ‘the thing.’”
Regarding the album’s genre-spanning song material, Marsalis noted that all five musicians had input. “Everyone in the band is always listening to all kinds of music,” Marsalis said, “so it's not as if we had to go out and do research on vocal records.”
Selections from the new album include Oscar Brown’s “Long As You’re Living,” Sting’s “Practical Arrangement” and Jobim’s “Só Tinha De Ser Com Você.” The album also features arrangements of the Nat King Cole-affiliated “Blue Gardenia” and Chris Whitley’s bluesy “From One Island To Another.”
A version of Sonny Rollins’ “Doxy” with lyrics by Mark Murphy is also included on the disc, as are two classic ballads, “Blue Velvet” and “I'm A Fool To Want You.”
“My philosophy of jazz is that it should be about strong melodies and a great beat, and every song here has a melody that you can hold in your mind, that you can sing,” said Marsalis. “This is not jazz as a personal think tank, where people are only concerned with impressing everyone already inside of the tank … This is the kind of music that should expand our base to include people who would like jazz if it were friendlier. From the minute Kurt started performing with us, it was all good.”
The Branford Marsalis Quartet featuring Kurt Elling will be a headliner of the 2016 Monterrey Jazz Festival, which will take place Sept. 16–18 in Monterey, California. For more information, click here.
To read an interview with Kurt Elling from 2011, click here.
—Brian Zimmerman
A solo concert by saxophonist Joshua Redman will close the first night of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival on Sept. 26.
Sep 22, 2026 12:26 PM
The Hyde Park Jazz Festival will take place for the 20th time on the final weekend of September 2026. Beginning half…
“It was just that suddenly … I could hear it,” Ravi Coltrane said of an epiphany he experienced during his late teens regarding his father’s music. “And it was almost like a calling, like something saying, ‘Hey, man, come on. It’s time to get serious.’ And the first time you really tune in and dial in and focus like that, it can be very life-changing.”
Sep 22, 2026 1:39 PM
Editor’s Note: Tomorrow, Sept. 23, is the 100th anniversary of John Coltrane’s birth. In honor of the tenor and…
Camille Thurman took to the stage alongside bassist Kenny Davis and drummer Tommy Campbell for a rendition of Johnny Mercer’s “I’m An Old Cowhand” that recalled Rollins’ epochal 1957 trio outing Way Out West.
Oct 6, 2026 1:33 PM
As emcee Mark Ruffin noted at the commencement of an epic tribute to saxophonist Sonny Rollins at the Cathedral of Saint…
Kurt Elling, Katherine Russell and Emmet Cohen (host on the 2027 Jazz Cruise) share a laugh at sea.
Sep 8, 2026 11:52 AM
It began in 2001. A travel agent named Anita E. Berry had been booking clients on “partial” jazz cruises that took…
Sep 17, 2026 11:00 AM
The 2027 DownBeat College Guide is an invaluable resource for music students, especially jazz students, to find a school…
