Kurt Elling and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra
The Village Vanguard
Through June 11

In the middle of Kurt Elling’s early Thursday set at the Vanguard, he let the audience know just how he felt: “I’m so happy to be here — this is my first gig at the Village Vanguard and my first gig with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra. I’m so happy that you’ve come here and that you have braved that which must be braved.”

He had a point: Not only was there an “Orange Colored Sky,” as Nat King Cole would have said, over the East Coast, thanks to someone “Settin’ the Woods on Fire,” as Hank Williams would have said, but for some mysterious reason, it seemed like every police officer in New York City had made it his business to be on Seventh Avenue South that evening.

Even though Mr. Elling has lived most of his life in Chicago, this was not his first apocalyptic experience in Lower Manhattan; he also happened to play Joe’s Pub a few weeks after 9/11, and I remember vividly staring up at the skyline bereft of the Twin Towers as I approached the Public Theater. Twenty-two years, hundreds of shows at Birdland, and two Grammy Awards later, Mr. Elling is back in the Village. 

“My goodness,” He continued, “This place is a life raft — the only way to get a breath of fresh air from the outside world is to come and sit down in a darkened room deep in a basement with a bunch of disgruntled jazz musicians.” He then pondered, “Man, think of what we’ve been through. And all this too. We must be pretty strong people, standing up through all of this. How do we keep going?”

At this point, Mr. Elling eased subtly into his second number, “Three Views of a Secret,” his own lyrics to the classic composition by Jaco Pastorious: “I don’t know / Am I supposed to know / What if every road leads the same way home?” 

The evening began with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra playing a powerful instrumental reading of the jazz standard “All of Me,” before Mr. Elling took to the stage with his remarkably swinging interpretation of Joe Jackson’s 1982, “Steppin’ Out.” I couldn’t help but wonder if it was a coincidence that numerous of his songs seemed to reflect this particular New York moment: “A Secret in Three Views” (his slightly altered new title), which appears on his 2017 album “The Questions,” describes the “Northern lights in the sky, like diamonds in flight.” The Joe Jackson song talks about “Steppin’ out into the night, into the light.” “Time to Say Goodbye,” based on Joe Zawinal’s “A Remark You Made,” which he sang later in the set, opens with the line, “Something in the air was stinging.”

Not that the music had to have a larger message; the teaming up of Mr. Elling and New York’s longest-running jazz orchestra (in the world’s longest continually operating jazz club) was event enough. Other than his first number, the program consisted entirely of Mr. Elling’s own lyrics — some of which are new or at least unrecorded — which he described as his attempts “to follow up on the work of Jon Hendricks, Eddie Jefferson, and Annie Ross.”  

A lovely, ruminative ballad, “Forever Lasting” based on a composition by a VJO original co-founder, Thad Jones, spotlighted flutes and trombones behind Mr. Elling’s mellifluous baritone crooning memorable lines like “we no sooner met than loved.” “Speak No Evil” was a reflection on our place in the continuum of humanity, and a reflection on those who have come before, a philosophical and metaphysical observation of the sort that composer Wayne Shorter would have enjoyed.  

“Time to Say Goodbye” wasn’t the finale, though; it was followed by “Eye of the Hurricane,” from Herbie Hancock’s masterpiece, “Maiden Voyage” (1965), which Elling sang on his first album “Close Your Eyes” (1995). Bob Mintzer orchestrated it as a rip-roaring flag waver with allusions to “Giant Steps.” Mr. Elling scatted vigorously (only the second time in the set), and there was an exciting chase chorus between trumpeter Brian Pareschi and tenor saxophonist Ralph Lalama, as well as a brief but effective drum solo by John Riley.

The set was fully seven tunes, and according to the clock, it was 70 minutes, but it flew by in half of a heartbeat. This is an exemplary presentation of singer-lyricist and jazz orchestra, with excellent arrangements by Mike Abene, Tim Hagans, and Jim McNeely, as well as Mr. Mintzer and the late Thad Jones. One hopes that he’ll bring it to a concert space such as Jazz at Lincoln Center or 92NY. Early in the show, Mr. Elling had asked us, “How do we keep going?” Somewhere along the way, he answered his own question.