The Questions

about this album

The Questions, Kurt Elling’s newest studio recording, is his musical response to this moment in history and the widespread anxiety of our times. It touches artfully on challenges – personal, political, global, spiritual, and existential – and on hopes and aspirations for the future. Elling offers a vibrant and surprising choice of songs, from Bob Dylan and Paul Simon classics to jazz, Broadway, and the Great American Songbook, plus two new originals. The Questions, Elling’s second recording for OKeh Records/Sony Music Masterworks, will be released on March 23, 2018. The Questions unfolds into a rich and irresistible musical conversation, encouraging listeners to join Elling in living with big questions and finding courage to face our fears in difficult and uncertain times. Of the ten songs on The Questions, Elling says, “At first I didn’t understand how they were going to relate to each other.” The title finally came to him as the album was being mixed. NEA Jazz Master and celebrated saxophonist Branford Marsalis co-produced The Questions with Elling and performs on three tracks. As Elling and Marsalis worked together on the mix and sequence of songs, Elling realized that they all lined up on various sides of some big, deep questions: What is this life? Does meaning have being? Why is there such suffering and pain? Where is the wellspring of wisdom? The Questions opens with the powerful, insistent questions and stark, disturbing answers of Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A

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more from Kurt Elling

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The Messenger

The Gate

Nightmoves

Passion World

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