Photo: Ned RadinskyCharlie Hunter Quartet February 27, 2009 The Oriental TheaterBetter Than: Hunting through your receipts for itemized deductibles for your tax check. Which is what I should have been doing. Over the past few decades, Charlie Hunter has become an icon among bass players, guitarists and rhythm gurus for his ability to sculpt a groove that reaches beyond genre lines. At the Oriental on Friday night, he created a story with an obvious arc, a true beginning, middle and end. Most
Kurt Elling and Eliane Elias, both Grammy-nominated vocalists, headline this year's JazzFest Denver at Dazzle this weekend. Elling's warm baritone can stretch over four octaves and he honed his chops by listening to Mark Murphy, Jon Hendricks and other crooners before him. The guy's a mad scatter, as well as being deft in vocalese, where he's set words to songs written by John Coltrane, Pat Metheny and Herbie Hancock, all of which can be found on his 2003 Blue Note release Man in the Air.
