Kurt Elling & The Yellowjackets

The Sala Guirau of the Teatro Fernán Gómez. The Centro Cultural de la Villa hosts American jazz singer Kurt Elling on 11 November in concert, performing alongside the American jazz fusion quartet The Yellowjackets. The evening presents their joint project Celebrate Weather Report as part of the official programme of JAZZMADRID26. Festival Internacional Jazz Madrid.

Kurt Elling was born in Chicago in 1967, and his relationship with music began, as with so many vocalists, singing in church and in school choirs. He had not yet turned thirty when he was signed by the record label Blue Note, which released his first album, Close Your Eyes, in 1995. Two years later came The Messenger, a work much praised by the specialist press.

In this concert, the jazz singer shares the stage with the jazz-fusion band Yellowjackets. Formed in 1977 at the invitation of guitarist Robben Ford, who would later work with Miles Davis and Sadao Watanabe before leading the Blue Line, the YellowJackets were the sensation of the second half of the 1970s. The wider public got to know them after the release of their first self-titled album, an initiatory recording featuring technicians of the calibre of Russel Ferrante and bassist Jimmy Haslip, both of whom had multiple sessions for Lee Ritenour, Michael Paulo and even Andy Summers, former guitarist of Police.

Now the group reunites with Kurt Elling to resume the tribute that was put on hold last year, recreating the music of Weather Report, the group conceived by keyboardist Joe Zawinul and saxophonist Wayne Shorter, at a time when jazz had connected its ideas and its habit of improvisation with the electric grid. Music always on the edge of the impossible, music derived from Miles Davis.

Line-up:

Kurt Elling - Vocals

Russell Ferrante - Keyboards

Bob Mintzer - Saxophone

Dane Alderson - Bass

Marcus Finnie - Drums