“The Rhythm of Living”: SongTalk, Postmodern Eclecticism and Theological Cosmopolitanism in the Work of Kurt Elling

Jazz singer Kurt Elling has experimented exceptionally widely with ways of combining words and music, often overturning accepted norms and hierarchies. He has exploited the word-sound relationship to open up cultural paradoxes and contradictions and to morph between different roles. Elling’s performances move beyond conventional jazz singing, and he has developed an idiom, which I call SongTalk, that explores the continuum between talking and singing, words and sound, to complex literary, musical and cultural ends.1