Secrets Are the Best Stories

When Kurt Elling released The Questions in 2018, he pushed his own boundaries by framing the jazz song as an inquiry into modern political, social, and philosophical topics. On Secrets Are the Best Stories, Elling, in a new musical partnership with pianist and composer Danilo Perez and other musicians, approaches a new frontier for exploring the implied, the hidden, the dark, and the edgy in songs that elucidate a bold creative metier. Elling adds lyrics to compositions by Wayne Shorter, Jaco Pastorius, Vince Mendoza, and Perez. Alongside them, the singer adapts the words, concepts, and spirits of contemporary writers including Nobel-winning Toni Morrison, poets Franz Wright and Robert Bly, and the 19th-century abolitionist poet/polemicist Frances E. W. Harper. This outing is a platform for Elling to eloquently and elegantly discourse on human rights, immigration, isolation, climate change, and more. His writing for this project is unusually probing; he examines everything from spiritual darkness and lifes mysteries to racism, alienation, gratitude, reflection, and intimacy. The Fanfold Hawk (For Franz Wright) is set to a lithe melody as Elling plays off his only accompaniment, Clark Sommers upright bass. Perez joins Elling, Sommers, and percussionists Rogerio Boccato and Roman Diaz in a new arrangement of Jaco Pastorius A Certain Continnum, transforming it into a mystical meditation (…There’s a ribbon/In the river/That is running through your heart/Restart/Be your own work of art…) inside a post-bop frame that recalls the bassists work on Joni Mitchells Mingus. Gratitude (For Robert Bly) begins as a grainy duo with Perez that reflects the poets intellectual, critical, and creative processes. When Sommers and Boccato enter, the tune opens onto a rhythmic and harmonic universe that embraces modern jazz and Panamanian folk music. Alto sax great Miguel Zenon joins the band on Beloved (For Tony Morrison), an open, borderline abstract jam that touches on modal and free jazz as well as an Asian folk form or two. It is among the albums most startling moments. The composition Stays was penned by Wayne Shorter -- whose quartet includes Perez -- with lyrics by Elling. It offers a narrative of a touring musicians near-encounters with a frightened elderly neighbor. The old man peeks out his door whenever the musician returns, only to hide within...until a tragedy reveals his reason. Song of the Rio Grande (For Oscar and Valeria Martinez-Ramirez)” is an indictment of the U.S. immigration system. While it begins with the optimism of his open heart (I start from the heart. And my heart goes to compassion) Ellings protagonist concludes in disgust, observing that, America/has lost its mind. Perezs prepared piano underscores the contradiction in the most poignant tune here. Elling also revisits Esperanto, a tune he cut in 1999. Its melody was penned by the legendary Mendoza. Elling, Perez, and their collaborators (including guitarist Chico Pinheiro) uncloak a mystical lyric worthy of Allen Ginsberg. Secrets Are the Best Stories is a collaboration that delivers deep messages with bracing new music and makes a profound step toward reframing the possibilities of vocal jazz. ~ Thom Jurek