The Jazz.com Blog
April 10, 2008 · 0 comments
Kurt Rosenwinkel Live
The Remedy, guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel’s first album in three years and his first live release in more than a decade, is finally here, after much anticipation Recorded live at New York’s Village Vanguard in 2006, after he ended his association with Verve, the self-produced 2-CD set has been released, after several false starts, by ArtistShare.
The album was well worth the wait. Rosenwinkel has long complained that studio albums don’t capture the energy his ensembles seek to create on the bandstand. This fire and the enthusiasm it can generate, are on full display on The Remedy.
One highlight is the album’s pairing of Rosenwinkel with tenor saxophonist Mark Turner, a longtime collaborator, on tracks such as “Chords.” Each has developed an intensely personal vocabulary, which on its own can raise as many questions as it answers. In this setting, however, the pair are perfectly balanced, and their more abstract moments are drawn back into conversation by the propulsive groove laid down by drummer Eric Harland, with pianist Aaron Goldberg and bassist Joe Martin.
Rosenwinkel and Turner are at the head of a tightly knit group of Berklee-trained musicians who moved to New York in the early nineties and found their musical home at Smalls, a subterranean Greenwich Village club around the corner from the Vanguard where Mitch Borden sought to give the young musicians the time and space they needed to develop their ideas. In Kurt’s words, “on those early evenings at Smalls, you could feel the whole place lifting up.”
Recorded in the intimate acoustics of the Vanguard, The Remedy does a good job of recreating some of the magic of those evenings. At 37, Rosenwinkel has already established an immediately recognizable voice as a composer and soloist. Stay tuned to jazz.com for further reflections on Kurt and his peers, who have already established a presence and influence well beyond their years.
“Chords” from Kurt Rosenwinkel’s The Remedy is currently Song of the Day at jazz.com. Click here for the full review.
This blog entry posted by Tim Wilkins.
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