Born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Rockford, Elling became interested in music through his father, who was Kapellmeister at a Lutheran church.

After college, he enrolled in the University of Chicago Divinity School, but he left one credit short of a degree to pursue a career as a jazz vocalist.

One of these experiences was that of singing the National Anthem with the high school madrigal choir, "Joyful Sounds" under the direction of Joyce Kortze in front of his first large crowd of over 40,000 people.

[5] Elling attended Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, where he majored in history and minored in religion.

[5] He became interested in jazz at Gustavus Adolphus while listening to Dave Brubeck, Dexter Gordon, Herbie Hancock, and Ella Fitzgerald.

[2] He began playing jazz gigs once a week during graduate school, with one of his first shows at Milt Trenier's, a basement club in Chicago (now defunct).

[7] Elling recalls, "By day I was reading Kant and Schleiermacher, trying to get a handle on that, and at night I was sitting-in in clubs, and, of course, you can't do both and be effective.

[6] Elling began listening to the vocalese of jazz singer Mark Murphy, who exposed him to the poetry of Jack Kerouac.

Following the advice of pianist Fred Simon, the cassette recording was sent to Bill Traut, a manager in Los Angeles, who eventually gave it to Bruce Lundvall of Blue Note.

[10] In 1995, Elling signed with Blue Note, and the songs on the demo became the Grammy nominated label debut, Close Your Eyes (1995).

[11] The album features Edward Petersen and Von Freeman on tenor saxophone, Dave Onderdonk on guitar, Laurence Hobgood on piano, Eric Hochberg and Rob Amster on double bass, and Paul Wertico on drums.

In August of the same year, Elling signed a contract with Concord Jazz, and his first album with the label, Nightmoves, was released in 2007.

Until November 2013, Elling's band included musical director Laurence Hobgood on piano, John McLean on guitar, Clark Sommers on bass, and drummer Kendrick Scott.

Howard Reich's wrote in his November 6, 2013 column "My kind of Jazz" in the Chicago Tribune, that Elling and Hobgood would be going separate ways.