Kurt Elling's first holiday album, The Beautiful Day, is truly beautiful and festive in a swinging way! Elling sings these classic Christmas and popular holiday songs with an ease and confidence proving once more that he is the best jazz singer of our time. The first track, "Sing a Christmas Carol", swings lightly and gets you into the feel of the album and puts you in a jazzy holiday mood. Elling's versions of "We Three Kings" and "Same Old Lang Syne" exude cool as he makes these Christmas favorites truly his own. "Beautiful Day" is the perfect ending for an album that s destined to be a holiday jazz classic. Grammy winner Kurt Elling is among the world's foremost jazz vocalists.

The ways in which passion is expressed in song vary from nation to nation, Kurt Elling maintains. Melody, language and style of expression are intimately connected and that’s why he sings these 12 songs from around the world in their original languages, with his jazz style subtly adjusted, and joined by an international cast of guests. It’s hard to imagine anyone else bringing this difficult feat off with such panache. The songs range from Bonita Cuba, featuring Cuban trumpet virtuoso Arturo Sandoval to Loch Tay Boat Song, with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra. The highspot for me is The Tangled Road: Elling’s lyric, Richard Galliano’s melody and a heart-stopping flugelhorn solo by Till Bronner.