Back to Press Page
Published January 21, 2006
By Howard Reich, Tribune arts critic
Thursday night's opening augured well for this year's event, with a serenely beautiful performance by Chicago singer Kurt Elling and saxophonist Jim Gailloreto's Jazz String Quintet.
Though only a small ensemble held the stage of Preston Bradley Hall in the Chicago Cultural Center, the intricacy, detail and innovation of Gailloreto's writing evoked the sense of
a chamber orchestra.
Many jazz musicians have written arrangements for strings, but Gailloreto's stood out, in part because of the sheer amount of musical information he
packed into each piece. Where lesser composers use the strings simply to play slow-moving chords or double the melody line, Gailloreto offered clever, four-part string writing.
Elling joined the fray on several numbers, his voice a warm and supple foil to the quintet's often prickly, provocative accompaniments. To hear Elling caress the phrases of
Kenny Dorham's "Fair Weather" and unspool the long, sinuous lines of Fred Hersch's "The Sleepers" was to savor a less hysterical facet of the singer's work
than listeners are accustomed to.
