Elden Kelly – June 8, 2024

Guitar virtuoso, improviser, composer and sound innovator Elden Kelly is one of the world’s best kept musical secrets. Audiences of all kinds are engaged by his virtuosity and expressiveness, technique and original thinking. As a solo and collaborative artist, his solutions to the questions offered in the format are engaging and unforgettable, and his contributions deep and far ranging. He also has a strong and haunting vocal style which he incorporates from time to time with great effect. Whether performing his original music or transforming a known theme, it always has the mark of the exceptional. 

Recently Elden recorded with Howard Levy (harmonica player from Bela Fleck and the Flecktones). The world renowned luthier Ken Parker recently called him a “once in a generation player” and being so impressed he awarded him on permanent loan a 1980 nylon string archtop called “Frankie” which he will demonstrate at the show.

Audiences in Michigan are familiar with his work with the Ann Arbor-based group Dave Sharp Worlds Quartet, having called the state home for over a decade before moving away. With the band, he has performed across the country and at Jazz Ascona in Switzerland ‘23 and ‘24.

There isn’t really anybody else with the breadth, diversity and richness of his musical blend. Classical and flamenco guitar influences combine with jazz, and true mastery of fretless guitars evokes blues, Indian, Eastern sounds and beyond. 

He is also a composer for solo guitar and ensemble, as well as a singer/songwriter. 

As a performer he has toured and performed across the country and has performed or recorded with Regina Carter, Bakithi Kumalo, Jamey Haddad, Ralphe Armstrong, Marion Hayden, Dwight Adams, Gayeynn Mckinney and many of Detroit’s most notable musicians.

Elden grew up in northwestern Vermont and holds a Master’s in Musicology from MSU and a Bachelor’s from New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

“Elden, you are a bad cat, a great player” –Lionel Loueke (guitarist for Herbie Hancock)

“You are gifted. Where did you learn all those runs? I need to take lessons from you” –Larry McCray (blues guitar legend)

“Nobody sounds like Elden on guitar” –Ralphe Armstrong (bassist for Mahavishnu Orchestra, Jean-Luc Ponty, Aretha Franklin) 

“A brilliant guitarist with phenomenal technique” –Joe Morris, free improv jazz guitar pioneer

“Elden Kelly’s music is like a chance meeting of brilliant forces embodied in one person: his illuminated guitar playing, hauntingly pure singing and expansive songwriting are all on the same quest of metaphysical discovery in which he includes us, the lucky listeners” –Dominique Eade (Boston-based award winning jazz vocalist)

“Being an improvising musician nurtured by jazz but also a composer, singer-songwriter and solo fingerstyle guitarist, his distinct style is refined, pristine and downright jaw-dropping to witness in person.” –Rich Tupica, City Pulse