Kurt Elling & WDR Big Band – In the Brass Palace
There are singers who move you and singers who impress you. Kurt Elling stubbornly falls into the latter category. The man once hailed by The New York Times as the most important male jazz vocalist of our time is back with “In the Brass Palace”, a collaboration with the renowned WDR Big Band from Cologne, led by saxophonist and conductor Bob Mintzer. And yes, it is exactly as grand, polished, and impeccable as you would expect from the Chicago uber-crooner. This is both the strength and the Achilles’ heel of this album.
Let’s start with the good news. The WDR Big Band is a machine of the highest order. Anyone who has heard their work with Randy Brecker or Ron Carter knows that these men and women from Cologne belong to the very top of European big bands. Recorded in October 2024 at the familiar Studio 4 of WDR in Cologne, “In the Brass Palace” sounds like a million dollars. Christian Schmitt’s production is crystal clear without ever feeling sterile, and the arrangements, with a nod to the work of Gil Evans, give the six tracks a cinematic, widescreen character that sometimes gives you goosebumps. The trumpet section with veterans such as Andy Haderer and Ruud Breuls blows the roof off. Speaking of the latter, Breuls is a Dutchman from Stein in Limburg, long overlooked in his home country but a mainstay of one of Europe’s best big bands in Cologne for years. Anyone wanting confirmation of the prophecy about his hometown needs only to listen to his playing on this album. Pianist Billy Test and bassist John Goldsby, meanwhile, keep the rhythmic foundation solid yet elegant.
The tracklist reads like an ambitious calling card. Opener “Steppin’ Out”, yes, the Joe Jackson song with that irresistible 1982 synthesiser melody, receives a sultry big band makeover that swings more than the original but also feels a bit polite. Elling delivers it with his characteristic baritone as if he had written it himself, and that is exactly the problem: he claims everything so effortlessly that you sometimes forget another story ever existed behind a song. “Desire”, a composition by guitarist John Scofield, gets a creeping film noir treatment where the orchestra beautifully sidesteps behind Elling’s dramatic delivery. It is one of the strongest moments on the album, precisely because the singer parked his ego for a moment and let the music breathe.
With “My Very Own Ride”, based on a Thad Jones theme with lyrics by Elling himself, we enter typical Elling territory: vocalese with an intellectual undertone, accompanied by an arrangement reminiscent of the heyday of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. “I Like the Sunrise” by Duke Ellington is a bold choice; Ellington wrote it as part of his Liberian Suite, and Elling sings it with genuine dedication. Yet even here, the typical Elling trait creeps in: every note is so perfectly placed that you wonder if there is still room for the unexpected, that one crack in the velvet where true emotion could seep through.
The two closing tracks pay homage to the Weather Report universe. “They Speak No Evil”, Elling’s take on Wayne Shorter’s classic “Speak No Evil”, is conceptually interesting but feels like an academic exercise in vocalese, clever but lacking the enigmatic magic of Shorter’s original. “Current Affairs”, a Joe Zawinul composition, closes the album with the most fire of all. Here, the WDR Big Band finally loosens the reins, producing an excitement that is sometimes missing in the first five tracks.
And that is the core issue with “In the Brass Palace”. It is an album that does everything right – the arrangements are spectacular, the orchestra plays phenomenally, the recording quality is sublime – yet it rarely truly surprises. Kurt Elling has been the best-dressed man in the jazz room for thirty years, the singer with the perfect suit and impeccable diction. But sometimes you long for a loose button, a crooked tie, an unexpected twist. With six tracks and forty-five minutes of playtime, the album is also on the short side; an eighth or ninth track could easily have added more dynamic contrast.
What remains is a skilful, sometimes beautiful, sometimes predictable big band album that delivers exactly what Elling devotees expect. JazzTimes already called the project the first part of an intended series, so who knows what’s to come. For now, “In the Brass Palace” is a solid first encounter – but not one that keeps you awake at night. (6/10) (Big Shoulders Records / WDR Mediagroup)
