1619 Broadway was the address where the legendary Brill Building was located. From the mid-1930s to the early 1970s, this gigantic building housed a gigantic network of offices, claustrophobic studios, and over a hundred and sixty tenants who only made a living in the popular music of the time. Between 1930 and 1960, the great jazz classics were written here that are the main component of The Great
… American Songbook. Kurt Elling wanted to pay tribute to this, but did not want to use the many songs that have been covered over and over by others thousands of times. He cannot be accused of standard copying, because after a careful selection of the repertoire, Elling and pianist Laurence Hobgood went to work to rearrange it, so that the musicians had a slightly more complicated task than simply opening the page number of the song in question in The Great American Songbook. A scandalous problem that many jazz singers are guilty of. Fortunately not Elling, because he has been working on the songs until they were completely his own. And that produces a beautiful CD. (AD)more