Vocalist and lyricist Kurt Elling was born in 1967 in Chicago and is now living in New York. Music specialists and the media have declared Kurt Elling, the man with the deep baritone and a range of 4 octaves, to be the best male jazz vocalist of the last 2 decades. He was influenced by King Pleasure and Jon Hendricks, who inspired him to do ‘vocalese’ (writing lyrics on instrumental jazz-solos) but also Frank Sinatra and Mark Murphy.

Besides scatting, Elling is also renowned for the so-called ‘ranting’: he improvises words and sentences on the spot.