The Next Step | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | 2001 | |||
Recorded | May 12 – Jun 27, 2000 | |||
Genre | Jazz | |||
Length | 61:56 | |||
Label | Verve | |||
Producer | Kurt Rosenwinkel, Jason Olaine | |||
Kurt Rosenwinkel chronology | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
Allmusic | [1] |
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings | [2] |
The Next Step is Kurt Rosenwinkel's fourth album as a band leader. [3] It is his second release on Verve, and regarded as a major step in his creative evolution. [1] Rosenwinkel says of the album: "It represents the culmination of many life phases for me. Some of these phases started ten years ago and have finally found resolution in this record. It represents the next step in my music and in my life". [4] The album debuts a number of compositions which would become staples of his live performances, and would also be re-recorded on his albums Deep Song and Star of Jupiter. The material was developed by the band during their frequent gigs at Smalls Jazz Club in New York City. Mitch Borden, the club's owner recalled that, "Kurt Rosenwinkel's band played with such dramatic fire, that it would consume everyone present". [5] The album features several songs with alternate guitar tunings, and also showcases Kurt Rosenwinkel's piano playing on the title track.
The Penguin Guide to Jazz described it as having "a Tristano-ite logic and cool-headedness. There's nothing to listen for except rigorous thought and intensity; it's abstruse, but entirely coherent. An extraordinary record for a major record company to release." [2]
Peter Margasak in The Chicago Reader wrote that Rosenwinkel's "lovely originals on [The Next Step]] exploit the tight ensemble approach of his quartet...The music is filled with shadowy effects, from the way Turner’s contrapuntal lines interlock with the guitarist’s rapid melodic flurries to the way Rosenwinkel underlines his own solos with sweet, wordless vocals. The deft rhythm section percolates, both in sync with and against the grain of all that twisty foreground material, giving the music a rigorous but gorgeous richness." [6] Ben Ratliff in The New York Times described the music as "the epitome of sensitive, modest-tempered art, the kind that doesn't assert itself until the moment is right." [7]
Years later, Nate Chinen would write that Rosenwinkel "made a personal breakthrough here — crafting a statement that has deeply informed more than one subsequent wave of the modern mainstream...Together, on the album, [the quartet] sound both reflective and radiant. The influence of their style, floaty and glowing and alert, has been so pervasive in recent years that it can be easy to forget how new it felt in 2001." [8]
Kurt Rosenwinkel is an American jazz guitarist, composer, bandleader, producer, educator, keyboardist and record label owner.
Mark Turner is an American jazz saxophonist.
Ben Street is an American jazz double bassist. Street has performed and recorded with many renowned artists, including John Scofield, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Mark Turner, Ben Monder, Michael Eckroth, Sam Rivers, Billy Hart, Danilo Perez, Aaron Parks, and Adam Cruz, among others.
Chris Speed is an American saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer.
Deep Song is Kurt Rosenwinkel's sixth album as a band leader. The album features a new band, composed of pianist Brad Mehldau, tenor saxophonist Joshua Redman, bassist Larry Grenadier, and drummers Ali Jackson and Jeff Ballard. While the all-star cast appearing on the record was seen as an attempt at commercial success, the players had all previously worked together and were part of the underground jazz scene in New York City during the 1990s. Among the tracks on Deep Song are two jazz standards, "If I Should Lose You" and "Deep Song". Of the eight original compositions on Deep Song, three were previously recorded and appeared on The Next Step and The Enemies of Energy.
Bradford Alexander Mehldau is an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger.
Aaron Goldberg, is an American jazz pianist. Described by The New York Times as a "post-bop pianist of exemplary taste and range," Goldberg has released five albums as a solo artist and has performed and collaborated with Joshua Redman, Wynton Marsalis, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and Guillermo Klein, among others.
Chris Lightcap is an American double bassist, bass guitarist and composer born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
Lush Life: The Music of Billy Strayhorn is an album by the jazz saxophonist Joe Henderson. Composed of songs written by Billy Strayhorn, the album was a critical and commercial success, leading to the first of three Grammy Awards Henderson would receive while under contract with Verve Records. The album had sold nearly 90,000 copies at the time of Henderson's death in 2001 and has been re-released by Verve, Polygram, and in hybrid SACD format by Universal. Musicians on the album are trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, pianist Stephen Scott, bassist Christian McBride and drummer Gregory Hutchinson.
Coltrane for Lovers is a compilation album of recordings by American jazz saxophonist-composer John Coltrane, released posthumously on January 23, 2001, by Impulse! and Verve Records. The 11 tracks compiled for the album are all romantic ballads from Coltrane's early years with Impulse!, being recorded during December 1961 to April 1963 at engineer Rudy Van Gelder's recording studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Dominated by Coltrane's classic quartet, the sessions also included collaborations with vocalist Johnny Hartman and pianist Duke Ellington.
Heartcore is Kurt Rosenwinkel's fifth album as a band leader. The album was fully produced by Rosenwinkel and Q-Tip of popular hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest. The album is a departure musically from Rosenwinkel's previous work, as he contributes keyboard, drums, and voice, at times creating soundscapes completely on his own in his personal studio. Says Rosenwinkel, "There is a place, musically, that’s above the categories. This record – it’s jazz. And it’s much more". While much of the album features varied instrumentation and personnel, a few tracks rely on a live performance aspect, reminding the listener of the connection to the jazz tradition. Rosenwinkel cites the influence of Arnold Schoenberg in the harmonic textural construction on Heartcore.
The Enemies of Energy a 2000 jazz album release by Kurt Rosenwinkel. Its release marked Rosenwinkel's third album as a band leader.
Eli Degibri is an Israeli jazz saxophonist, composer, and arranger.
Jorge "Jordi" Rossy is a spanish jazz drummer, pianist and vibraphonist.
Star of Jupiter is Kurt Rosenwinkel's tenth album as a band leader. This album includes a new band and is Rosenwinkel's first quartet album since The Next Step (2001). The album includes mostly new songs with a remake of an old composition, "A Shifting Design". A review at All About Jazz called the album "a contemporary classic." Transcriptions of the album by Denin Koch have been published by Mel Bay.
Crazy People Music is a jazz album featuring the Branford Marsalis Quartet, led by saxophonist Branford Marsalis and featuring Kenny Kirkland, Jeff "Tain" Watts, and Robert Hurst. It was recorded January 10, February 18, and March 1, 1990 at RCA Studios in New York, New York. It peaked at number 3 on the Top Jazz Albums chart. It was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1990 for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist.
"26-2" is a musical composition written by American jazz musician John Coltrane. The song was recorded by Coltrane in 1960, but it released ten years later by Atlantic Records on an album entitled The Coltrane Legacy with a rhythm section composed of McCoy Tyner on piano, Steve Davis on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums. The composition itself is a contrafact of Charlie Parker's tune "Confirmation", with harmonic alterations to the original chord changes used by Coltrane in a number of his compositions. This harmonic modification is commonly known as Coltrane Changes, which have been most notably used in Coltrane's "Giant Steps". "26-2" is one of several contrafacts by Coltrane, others including "Countdown", a contrafact of Miles Davis's "Tune Up"; and "Satellite" from the album Coltrane's Sound, which is based upon the chord progression of "How High the Moon". Coltrane plays the first statement of the melody on tenor saxophone and switches to soprano saxophone for the last statement of the melody on the recorded version.
Jacob Sacks is an American jazz pianist and composer.
Michael Blake is a Canadian saxophonist, composer and arranger. Blake is based in New York City where he has led a robust career leading his own bands. As a sideman Michael has performed with Charlie Hunter, The Lounge Lizards, Steven Bernstein/Henry Butler and the Hot 9, Ben Allison and Ray LaMontagne. The New York Times jazz critic Ben Ratliff wrote,"Mr. Blake, on tenor especially, is an endlessly engaging improviser, and an inquisitive one".
Jon Irabagon is a Filipino-American saxophonist, composer, and founder of Irabbagast Records.