The Next Step (Verve, 2000) was Kurt Rosenwinkel’s highly acclaimed fourth studio album. Its content was honed by the Rosenwinkel quartet’s eight-year Tuesday-night residency at Greenwich Village’s Smalls Jazz Club. It was voted the most important and influential jazz recording of the 21st century in JazzTimes magazine.
This newly released archival snapshot of the quartet’s live playing is a near reflection of the track listing on the studio album and the recording quality here is on a par with its studio counterpart.
A two-minute solo guitar intro to the opener A Shifting Design is a precursor to a tightly arranged quartet featuring Mark Turner’s liquid tenor and lightning guitar runs from Rosenwinkel. Use Of Light opens with Rosenwinkel’s ethereal harmonics with the melody then traced by Turner and Rosenwinkel on this regally paced ballad. Zhivago sees the quartet joined by Smalls regular Brad Meldhau, who contributes a show-stopping piano solo. A Life Unfolds sees Rosenwinkel augmenting his guitar exposition with uncredited wistful countertenor-like wordless vocals which add an idiosyncratically entrancing dimension to the piece. On The Next Step is introduced by Rosenwinkel on piano. Mark Turner evinces the labyrinthine opening theme followed by an accelerated tempo change. There’s a robust tenor solo from Turner and an explorative, cascading piano solo by Rosenwinkel.
The personnel heard on this live album, including bassist Ben Street and Jeff Ballard on drums, constituted the nucleus of Rosenwinkel’s tight band over three albums from The Enemies Of Energy (Verve, 2000) to Heartcore (Verve, 2003). Rosenwinkel, as always, shines, a personification of virtuosity.
Discography
(1) A Shifting Design; Use Of Light; (2) Zhivago; (1) Alpha Mega; A Life Unfolds; The Next Step (56.54)
(1) Rosenwinkel (elg, p); Mark Turner (ts); Ben Street (b); Jeff Ballard (d).
(2) as (1) but add Brad Meldhau (p). New York, 1996.
Heartcore MOCLD 1104
