Deep Song

Before I begin my review of "Deep Song" I must give everyone reading a little history of Kurt Rosenwinkel.

Kurt attended Berklee School of Music and dropped out after two and half years to join Gary Burton's band in 1990. He actually didn't start playing with Gary on albums until about 1992. Gary Burton took this guy under his wing and showed him the "musical ropes." Kurt played with several jazz musicians such as Joe Henderson, Brian Blade's Fellowship, and Paul Motian's Electric Bebop Band. His first album as a solo artist was "East Coast Love Affair" and then he released "Inuit," which was a collection of jazz standards in 1998. Finally in 2000, he was signed to Verve and released the album "The Enemies of Energy." In 2001 he released "The Next Step," an album which won him praise amongst such great jazz guitar greats as Pat Metheny and John Scofield. The year 2003 saw the release of "Heartcore," which was sort of a experimental/fusion type of jazz album. It was co-produced by hip-hop giant Q-Tip. This album was a big departure from the kind of jazz he played in the previous albums.

Now on to my review of 2005's "Deep Song." This album absolutely cooks! The musicians for this album are incredible as well. This album is a continuation in the jazz style that he displayed on "The Next Step." If you haven't bought "The Next Step" you must do so.....really great album, but I'm really listening to this album alot right now.

The musicians on this album are as follows:

Kurt Rosenwinkel - guitar, voice

Joshua Redman - tenor saxophone

Brad Mehldau - piano

Larry Grenadier - bass

Jeff Ballard - drums

Ali Jackson - drums

Kurt's playing can be described as the following, which I got out of the new issue of Jazziz magazine (article by Bill Milkowski):

"He's an adventurous, searching artist whose playing is marked by kinetic melodicism, darkly delicate lyricism, a penchant for dissonance, and cascading horn-like lines."

If you are new or haven't picked this new album up, then please do so. This is some amazing jazz played by amazing players.

Whatever one thinks of Rosenwinkel's prior disc, Heartcore (and, admittedly, it received mixed reviews, at best--although some of us majorly dug it), I think it can safely be said it proved an important step in his musical development, kinda like the role Largo (another not altogether well-received effort) played in Brad Mehldau's career: each musician came out of his brief experiment with electronica wielding both a broader sonic palette and a greater depth of musical understanding.

Interestingly, here these two artists have joined forces, as it were, Mehldau (at least for this disc) becoming the piano counterpart to Rosenwinkel's guitar. That they mesh so well is hardly surprising. Perhaps the most obvious example is their work on "The Next Step," a reworking of the title tune of Rosenwinkel's last album before Heartcore. On the former outing, the leader played piano--competently enough, it must be said, but nothing that special. On this outing, which casually trumps the former, Mehldau forms and integral and essential part of the new conception, which is at once more intense, more swinging, and more ephemerally brilliant. Indeed, one can scarcely imagine the piece in its former incarnation after this masterful rereading. Very much like the transformation Ben Allison effected with his song "Buzz," originally from his Medicine Wheel disc, and then becoming the title (and, it must be said, signature) tune of his latest disc, Buzz.

Sometimes, I think, jazz needs to go through a kind of rebirth, often by encountering alien musics, such as, for instance, electronica, for it to achieve its proper apocalypses, showing forth, manifestation. Granted, these experiments, these encounters, are not always uniformly successful. Nevertheless, they provide the matrix, don't they, for the music to burst forth into joyous elegiacism, carrying with it all the glories of the tradition even as it heralds forth new and as yet unseen glories. Jazz after all is meant to be a living, developing music, a music rooted in the past but always thrusting forward into the future.

And that's what we've got here: musicians grounded in the idiom but equipped to speak it into the next generation, where other artists will appropriate the vision, expand it, and produce its next iteration, just as these artists have absorbed the lessons of swing, bop, hardbop, freebop, and world jazz and mapped them onto new musical vistas of the grandest conception.

A few specific observations. Rosenwinkel's tone and timbre bear an uncanny resemblance to Pat Metheny's on this disc, although his concept and phrasing owe little to him. Indeed, it's almost as if Rosenwinkel has fully absorbed Metheny's approach, and then moved light years beyond it, all the while retaining some of its essential elements. Moreover, this disc is brilliantly recorded by James Farber, quickly becoming the new Jan Erik Kongshaug (not surprising to find him as the engineer behind such brilliant projects as Abercrombie's Class Trip, and the latest from Motian/Lovano/Frisell, I Have the Room Above Her). Finally, and this is a little hard to say, as Jeff Ballard is one of my drums heroes, but I think he's outdone by Ali Jackson (who plays on the majority of tracks), although one must admit that each brings his own genius to the table.

In any case, this is jazz as it's meant to be--gorgeous, edgy, prophetic, quirky, and unique. A very great disc, certainly Rosenwinkel's finest to date, and among a handful of truly significant discs released in the new millennium.

I bought this album mainly for my interest in the supporting cast (I'm a fan of Mehldau, Redman, Grenadier and Ballard.) I had never heard KR before and I am thoroughly impressed. Not only does he have amazing chops, but he also has a penchant for playing very quirky yet haunting melody lines, almost like Miles did on trumpet. The song selection is excellent. I think I only skip one or two of the songs, and that's more because I can't wait to get to other ones deeper in the album.

Some of this album is slow and poignant, some is swinging, some is afro-sassy. But it's NEVER boring. If you like good jazz, buy this album. I can't wait to get more of his stuff.

Highlights for me are: Th Cross, song #4, song #7 and the final track #10. But again, they're all quite nice.

PS Ali Jackson is one bad-mutha, as well.