Event

Theo Bleckmann Elegy

Read a dozen reviews of Theo Bleckmann and youll spot some recurring themes: meticulous technique, astounding range, precise pitch, unearthly yet elementally human timbre. But the label most commonly applied to his vocalizing may be uncategorizable. Bleckmann has recorded art songs, bar songs, and an award-winning album of Kate Bush songs. Hes sung Charles Ives with indie-jazz group Kneebody. The composers of the Bang on a Can collective write for him regularly. For fifteen years, he was a core member of the Meredith Monk ensemble. Jazz writer David Hajdu finds him as playfully experimental as Albert Ayler or Ornette Coleman, and DownBeat named him male vocalist of the year in 2014. Now hes touring in support of his first album for the legendary ECM label, with a band that includes longtime allies Monder and Hollenbeck.

"One of the most flexible and uncategorizable figures on the New York scene...in a niche of his own invention, somewhere between jazz, cabaret, classical, experimental, and improvised music...It's tremendously rare for a singer to realize the potential of the voice so thoroughly."
Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader

With Shai Maestro, piano; Ben Monder, guitar; Chris Tordini, bass; and John Hollenbeck, drums