The sessions for “Close Your Eyes” were my first as a professional musician. A few years earlier I had quit the University of Chicago’s Divinity School one credit shy of my master’s degree. Pulled away by musicians in the great and generous Chicago jazz scene, I spent the following two years sitting in at clubs, playing weddings and gigs (many with my bassist, Rob Amster). I tended bar. I did furniture moving. I worked on my craft, living in a one-room basement apartment for $150 a month. There I practiced and brooded and wrote poem fragments on the walls.

By 1995, my ambition had the better of me. I had gotten to know Laurence Hobgood through saxophonist Ed Petersen, who had a steady Monday night gig at the Green Mill. With hardly any experience in the studio, I insisted to him that I was ready to record. I knew that I wanted at least to be able to sell something on my gigs that represented what I was hearing and making in live settings – humble as they were.

With Laurence’s help, and with the financial assistance of an angelic friend, we lined up some recording dates and put together some trusted musical experts. I had some tunes that Rob and I had already been playing – “Never Say Goodbye” and “Clouds”. Laurence brought some things to the table – “Never Never Land” and “Dolores” (to which he suggested I write a lyric). We wrote some new things together. I had the drive and Laurence had the orchestral skills. Seemed like a good idea at the time, and now I can see that it really was.

We came out with nine pieces, and I excitedly took the tapes around town playing them for musician friends. One of them, composer and pianist Fred Simon, suggested that I send the tape to a manager he knew and trusted in Los Angeles. I did, and from that mailing Bill Traut and I made a fast friendship that became a solid and successful ten-year business partnership.

What’s more, within three weeks’ time Bill got the tape to Bruce Lundvall, music lover non pareil at Blue Note Records. Bruce tells the story that he was in the back of his car in Manhattan on his way to the dentist when he began listening to the cassette demo. I don’t think he got through four cuts before he frantically looked on the cassette to see who was singing. As it happened, my home phone number was still taped to the cassette. So he called the number.

Now, I don’t know how one is supposed to act when one is an unknown 25-year-old jazz hopeful and one gets a call from the president of Blue Note Records at 9 o’clock on a Wednesday morning, but I was still half asleep from some $30.00 gig the night before. This made it possible for me to come off much cooler about the whole thing than I could have ever acted otherwise.

“Hello”

“Hello! Is this Kurt Elling!?”

”Yes.”

“Well this is Bruce Lundvall from Blue Note Records! I have your tape playing right now in my car - I got it from Bill Traut. Listen, it’s playing right now!” He holds the phone out for me to hear.

“Cool.”

“You’re darn right it’s cool! I LOVE this! Listen, you haven’t signed with anybody yet, have you? I mean Bill hasn’t made a contract with anybody yet, has he? ‘Cause I have GOT to have you as a Blue Note Artist.”

“No, I’m cool.”

“Great! Well, when are you playing next?”

“Uh, this Monday in Chicago at a club called the Green Mill.”

“That’s great! I am going to fly out there and meet you, young man. Can I call Bill to start things up? I want to have a signed contract by the end of this month! Is that ok with you?”

“Sure. Ok. Sounds hip. . .”

Needless to say, I did not keep my cool for long once the phone was back on the hook. But Bruce was true to his word and we met the first time at the Mill the next Monday night and signed the papers not long after. It was another good match, and another great friendship made. I cannot thank Bill Traut and Bruce Lundvall enough for opening the doors for me and for supporting me through the first long leg of my artistic journey. And I cannot even begin to thank Laurence enough for the ongoing creative partnership that began with this record. I mean, how do you properly thank your other creative half?

When I listen back to “Close Your Eyes” these days I hear mostly my mistakes and my exasperating youth. There are several spots where I think I overcome my inexperience with ideas approximating inspiration. But the adult me can’t help wishing the younger me had had just a bit more time and musical discretion in his bag before we recorded. Still, I am proud of “Close Your Eyes” and of the innocent, inspired earnestness it represents.