The life of an artist can take many twists and turns. For Kurt Elling, a native Chicagoan who has made it to the mountaintop in the world of jazz with two Grammy wins, that path leads to Broadway.
The 57-year-old jazz singer has joined the Broadway cast of the Tony-award musical “Hadestown” as Hermes, the messenger of the gods who serves as the show’s narrator and emcee.
“It’s an enormous creative challenge,” Elling said less than a week into his stint on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre in New York City. “I haven’t memorized stage blocking since I was in high school. So it’s not just a Broadway debut, it’s a theater debut since high school.”
Elling, who is known for his rich and distinctive baritone vocals, attended St. Paul Lutheran School in Rockford, where he sang in the choir and played a few instruments. Later, as a graduate student at the University of Chicago Divinity School, he sang in jazz clubs on the weekends, straddling the fence between pursuing a career in religious academia or going all in with jazz. He left school before graduating, a choice that ultimately set him on his award-winning path in jazz.
“Hadestown,” as its name suggests, is set in Hades, a Broadway take on the mythological hell. Onstage, Hades is portrayed in a style reminiscent of New Orleans, and the music fuses folk, jazz and the blues. Elling’s style meshes smoothly, but the veteran singer, while excited, still had a touch of apprehension about the opportunity.
“It’s many things,” he said, reflecting on how it feels to take the Broadway stage. “It’s thrilling. It’s invigorating. It’s rejuvenating, and it can also be terrifying. We didn’t have nearly the number of rehearsals that a 57-year-old man who has rusty chops at everything but being himself and singing in front of people would really like to have.”
Despite not acting in decades, Elling said he was eager to take on the role. He had first heard of the play in the years after the pandemic, courtesy of one of his children. “My daughter is really the Broadway fan in the family,” he said. The chance to join the show all but fell into Elling’s lap, when a producer he had worked with a decade ago reached out. The producer said he thought Elling had the personality to act.
“He came to some shows that I was doing at Birdland [a New York jazz club] last January,” said Elling. “I was doing my typical thing: I’m hosting the night, I’m introducing the musicians, I’m telling stories and I’m taking care of business.” A few days, later an invitation to join “Hadestown” was in his email.
“It’s a very great honor,” said Elling. “I’m so grateful to have this adventure. You know, Broadway people take their music and their heroes just as seriously as jazz people take their history and their heroes. I will give my best to this project and make it as beautiful a thing as I can for myself and for anybody who comes out.”
Now Elling, who lives in Chicago, is temporarily living in New York while working on the show. But he made sure to bring a piece of Chicago to the show to share with his new castmates.
“I’m introducing everybody in the cast to Malört,” he said. “None of them have ever had any, so I ordered up a case and I started passing it around.”