Bad news for Toby Keith, good news for Kurt Elling

Kudos to Steve Rhodes for remembering Howard Reich's column from three weeks ago in which the Chicago Tribune critic urged President-elect Obama to bring jazz back to the White House.

Obama's mixed-race heritage reflects the genome of jazz, which first blossomed when multiple cultures and classes converged in New Orleans at the turn of the previous century. No other American metropolis brought largely self-taught black musical geniuses (such as Louis Armstrong) and their formally trained Creole counterparts (such as Jelly Roll Morton) into such proximity.

Yeah, that's interesting -- but the larger point is that Obama is making yet another reach back in history, not to the Carter years (as Reich suggests) so much as the Camelot years. JFK and Jackie were famously hospitable to art and artists of all types.

But yes, it does help jazz's cause here that Obama is from one of America's great jazz cities, with not only one of the livelier club scenes but a reputation for pushing the creative envelope. I believe the president's declarations about making the White House more jazz-friendly is good news for my Divinity School classmate Kurt Elling, who began his singing career while we were still in school together (an early promoter of his, sideman and club owner Milt Trenier, insisted on promoting him as Kurt Ellington). Now a fixture on the Chicago scene, Kurt is currently touring with his new interpretations of the John Coltrane songbook from the mid-1960s ... hey, whaddya known, Trane is a personal favorite of our 44th president.

Still, I don't think country music fans need to despair that the Pickup Truck Prez is rolling out of town soon. After all, wasn't one of the most-played anthems at Obama rallies this summer and fall "Only in America" by Brooks and Dunn?