“I could use more than moments with you, baby / And I know where you steal them from / There are so many things I will teach you / But they’ll call me a useless bum…. Stolen moments…sto-len mo-ments…”
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Intense and ponytailed, 23 years old and fretful that time may be running out for finding his bliss, let alone for following it, Elling’s dual interests in things musical and metaphysical find their roots in his “churchly family” in Rockford, Illinois. His father is the principal of a Lutheran church school, where he’s also the organist. His mother sings in the choir. His grandfather was a missionary, and eight great-uncles attended seminary. Elling joined the church choir in elementary school. “I can’t remember a time when I didn’t sing. I learned all the Bach chorales. Later, I would make up harmonies. I had the Messiah memorized by high school.” People sometimes lauded his musical talents, Elling recalls, but his father discouraged him from singing solos in church. “He never wanted to make it look like he was pushing or showing his son off.”
“There were some ministers who I really respected growing up, but so many were these polyester types, these imperialists wanting to teach people this thing that really wouldn’t help them….It was just so important to them to point the way to heaven,” Elling recalls.
Elling made his debut in that world with a jazz quartet during college. Very quickly, he started to experiment with scat–often with what he recalls as “really awful” results. His saving grace was an intuitive feel for harmonics and chord progressions gleaned from all the hymnbooks. A handful of years later, his delivery is smooth and sophisticated, explosive and exciting, approaching the style of his musical mentor, Mark Murphy.
“In a way it’s a Taoist thing, in that I give up concerns about what’s going to happen and I just live. In that moment, I just live. If the bass player starts playing ‘Footprints,’ I’m awash in it.”
