Another thing that made my flight delay bearable was Kurt Elling’s new CD, Man in the Air. One thing that’s really cool about Elling and the folks who play with him is that they are fascinated with the texture of sound — when we see him at the Green Mill he is always doing funky stuff to mess with sounds in ways that may result in something very interesting. You definitely get a sense of that in this album.

This album also has Stefon Harris, a fantastic vibraphonist, in addition to the Laurence Hobgood Trio that usually plays with Elling.