Kurt Rosenwinkelās new album is a trip nearly 30 years into the past, to a time when he and his collaborators found lightning in a bottle in a renowned New York club.
The influential jazz guitaristās new release, The Next Step Band (Live at Smalls, 1996), captures a performance at NYCās Smalls at a time when the venue was emerging as a local creative hotbed. Heās also publishing a career-spanning book of compositions, and together, the works demonstrate a jazz-guitar genius in search of musical and existential truth.
Kurt Rosenwinkelās 2000 Verve release, The Next Step, changed the jazz-guitar world. Up until that point, the big names of the ā60s and ā70s still dominated the landscape. The Next Step signified a new voice, and soon, a number of younger players began to try to emulate Kurtās sound, approach, and even the way he dressed.
Fully saturated in bebop language, Kurt had created a modern, signature style grounded in stunning compositions. His band was full of what we now know as some of the most accomplished jazz musicians of the era: Mark Turner on tenor sax, Ben Street on bass, and Jeff Ballard on drums.
How interesting, then, to find out that this body of work was fully formed years earlier, as evidenced by his latest release, The Next Step Band (Live at Smalls, 1996). Between 1994 and 2001, the group had a weekly residency at Smalls, the West Village club that was becoming a proving ground for New York Cityās straight-ahead elite. By 1996, they had already developed a remarkable chemistry, inhabiting Kurtās challenging compositions with empathy and authority. A recording was made of one of the shows on Alesis Digital Audio Tape, or ADAT, which Kurt carried around with him for almost three decades.
āWe were four very strong personalities. Would we survive on the road again?ā
Why release it now? āMy wife had been suggesting for several years that I revisit this era,ā Rosenwinkel says. āI was resistant. I couldnāt see the point in looking back. Also, we were four very strong personalities. Would we survive on the road again? I finally had some time in my schedule and listened, and I knew it was time to share this history.ā
Kurt Rosenwinkel & The Next Step Band - "The Next Step"
Rosenwinkel says that the development of the music was āpart and parcelā with the room at Smalls. āIt was a great room for music with a lot of detail; bebop-based things with quick turns,ā he says. āWe had the fortune of having this steady gig every week, and I was writing music all the time. We would rehearse at my place in Brooklyn. Ben and Mark lived close by, and Jeff was just over the bridge on Varick Street. I had already spent a lot of time playing duos with Ben, and when Mark and I met we had an instant connection. So from the start, we bonded. We would experience a kind of telepathy on stage. I wrote a lot of those songs in one week when I was housesitting at Chris Cheekās house in Brooklyn. We rehearsed during the week, and it was an intense period of study where I resolved to learn as much as I could about the mechanics of the instrument.ā
There are many remarkable aspects to what Kurt is doing. His compositions, from the start, demonstrate a fully mature, individual voice grounded in his forebears: Strayhorn, Coltrane, Bud Powell, Bill Evans. Kurtās harmonic approach is extremely sophisticated. The changes can be profuse, surprises alight, and yet the music never feels overstuffed or pointlessly intellectual. As a soloist, his linear lines are charged with risk-taking drama, and his ability to accompany himself with perfectly placed chord shapes is uncanny. He never seems to run out of ideas. As if this isnāt enough, he manages to include several pieces on the record where he uses alternate tunings. Itās hard enough to play compositions with this much harmonic density in standard tuning. Doing so by relearning where the notes are on the neck is mind-boggling. (The tuning is BāāGāDāāAāāBāāEā.)
āFrom the start, we bonded. We would experience a kind of telepathy on stage.ā
Why retune? āI was shedding incredibly long hours in those days,ā says Rosenwinkel. āIt got to the point where my intellectual focus was overwhelming. There was so much critical analysis of the fretboard going on that I felt I needed a beginnerās mind. The altered tuning came about because I wanted to sabotage my knowledge. I didnāt want to know anything when I touched the instrument. All the codification and classification were getting in the way of my enjoyment of the music. It was beautiful to not know what I was doing, and many of these songs came out of that. It really served its purpose, in terms of putting the intellect in its proper place. The deeper senses, the heart, need to lead your music. That being said, when I came back to the conventional tuning, I was really happy to feel as if I knew something again!ā
The Next Step Band (Live at Smalls, 1996) is a snapshot of the rare musical and cultural symbiosis that made Smalls a hotspot for era-defining up-and-comers in the ā90s.
The community around the venue was part of the experience, too. āThe scene at Smalls was such that youād meet hundreds of people, coming in and out all the time, a whole spectrum of musicians including people my age, and an older generation that stretched all the way back to the ā50s, to Bud Powell and Charlie Parker. Weād hang out in the back room just talking all night. There was no barāit was BYOBāso it was all about the music. There was all the rice and beans you could eat, which for some of us was our main sustenance during the week. People would live at Smalls. A couple times someone crawled out of the wall where they were sleeping in back of the stage, had a good stretch, and traipsed between us as we were playing! A lot of people had strong experiences with the music at that time, and I think you can hear that in the music.ā
Kurt has also just released a massive book of his compositionsā594 pages, 150 songs. Some nine years in the making, itās a compendium of his lifeās work. Not content just to print lead sheets, he has included printable PDFs of band arrangements, Sibelius files so readers can make their own arrangements, musings and reflections on each of the songs, and pictures from each time period. Itās a beautifully crafted presentation, suitable for a coffee table. I asked Kurt about the epic journey leading to this profuse, diverse, and deep collection of songs.
āThe altered tuning came about because I wanted to sabotage my knowledge. I didnāt want to know anything when I touched the instrument.āāI began composing songs when I was nine years old; Iāve always considered myself a composer first,ā he says. āI try to use every means at my disposal to help the writing process, going back and forth between piano, guitar, and the computer software. About one in 10 songs seems to come out relatively whole. In other cases, I can start with something, and find that it takes years to finish. āEast Coast Love Affairā was like that. I wrote the A section, and didnāt find the B section ātil three years later, when it came from another song I was working on. Itās like archaeology. Youāre digging around in the soil for the valuable artifactsādusting them off, putting the pieces together. I find my harmony by feelingwhat chord wants to come next, experimenting with light and dark. There have been periods in my life where Iāve written longer forms with a lot of complexity, and other times when Iāve gone for simplicity. As Iāve gotten older, itās easier to get right down to it and get at the essence of the piece right away. I donāt really plan to write anything. I tend to wait for it to come to me.ā
Kurt Rosenwinkel's Gear
Rosenwinkel says he doesn't have just one signature guitar sound, and heās proud of thatāheās always chasing something he can never quite catch.
Photo by Aleks KonÄar
Guitars
- DāAngelico Master Builder New Yorker
- Westville Kurt Rosenwinkel Signature Vanguard
- Yamaha SG500
- Moffa Maryan
Amps
- Fractal Audio FM9
Effects
- Pro Co RAT
- EHX POG2
- Xotic EP Booster
- Line 6 Echo Pro
Strings & Picks
- Thomastik Infeld BB111 Jazz BeBop Strings
- Westville signature picks (tortoise, smooth, polished, celluloid 1.5 mm pick in traditional teardrop shape)
Was there a line connecting these different eras and focal points, from over three decades of putting pen to paper? āA prism comes to mind, something that reflects various aspects of your soul at different times. Iāve never been a person that needed to have a strong identity that is connected to any external thing, I tend to flow in and out of different identities. Thatās what led me to do all kinds of different music, whether with [A Tribe Called Quest rapper/producer] Q-Tip, a whole textural thing, free improv, jazz tunes, and Iām even planning on making a rock record. I was totally into the so-called downtown thing in the ā90s, the Knitting Factory. Very few people in my circle at Smalls crossed over into that terrain. Whatever comes out of me, thatās the way it is. With Caipi [Rosenwinkelās 2017 release featuring guitarist/singer Pedro Martins], for instance, I didnāt set out to make a Brazilian record. I just started to hear songs that had some of that vibe. It wasnāt a conscious process, it was all completely natural.ā
āItās like archaeology. Youāre digging around in the soil for the valuable artifactsādusting them off, putting the pieces together.ā
Sifting through this book allows us to see the breadth of Kurtās output. It starts with those early formative pieces on this new live record, tunes that are exuberant, harmonically elaborate, bebop-based, sometimes pensive. They dig into the past and fly into the future. We see a more quiet, meditative side from Deep Song. The Caipi record takes us into new rhythmic territory with pieces that have vocals. Star of Jupiter offers virtuosity that suggests the influence of Allan Holdsworth.
Itās interesting to see Rosenwinkelās guitar sound morph as well. In the early and mid-ā90s, he played an Epiphone Sheraton through a Polytoneānot an atypical setup for the era. As time goes on, he continually experiments with any available technology, all in service of his liquid phrasing. At this point, he uses a Fractal Audio amp modeler for most effects, while still retaining the EHX POG, a box he was early to champion.
Rosenwinkelās new compilation book, adorned on the cover with this photo, gathers decades of the guitaristās compositions into one profound, exciting work.
Cover photo by Greg Miles
āI donāt have a signature sound,ā says Rosenwinkel. āI have many signature sounds. When I recorded The Next Step, part of what I realized was that my āsoundā was what I was doing with my voice. I was unconsciously singing along to what I was playing. I had often hated the sound I got in recording studios in the ā90s. I realized that it was the blend of the guitar coming out of the amp and my voice that was what the audience was hearing. So we began recording my voice in the studio. A lot of people tried to copy that. The thing is that Iām always going for the same sound; itās always been in my head, but I canāt ever reach it, so thatās why you get all these different iterations. Iāve heard people say that I should play with a more āpureā guitar sound. But there is no pure guitar sound. Every pickup, every amplifier, every guitar is different. What I would like is if the guitar sounded the way it does before itās plugged in. That would be my ideal, but you canāt get that. It has less attack, all these qualities that Iām trying to achieve. I donāt consider what Iām using as effects. They are all just tools for matching what I have in my mind to the instrument.ā
āIāve heard people say that I should play with a more āpureā guitar sound. But there is no pure guitar sound.ā
Rosenwinkel discusses his legato phrasing and his left-hand pull-offs and hammer-ons, flourishes that are unique amongst his contemporaries. āIf every one of Charlie Parkerās lines had a transient to it, it would sound terrible,ā says Rosenwinkel. āIt would be too much rhythmic information. Thereās emphasis and thereās continuity, and in that continuity you can hear all the content in the line. Itās the same with Lee Konitz. Itās fluid, very articulate, but liquid. The melodies are clear. I donāt want to be fighting with the ride cymbal in these transients. A lot of people who copy me get it wrong, because they donāt have the same very specific phrasing goals as me.ā
With the Next Step Band, Rosenwinkel would sometimes play songs in unconventional tunings, complicating the already complex arrangements in a sort of challenge to himself.
Kurt is also an eloquent teacher. During the pandemic, he began to release a series of master classes with troves of information, and heās a perennial and beloved instructor at the Alternative Guitar Summit Camp that I run in upstate New York every summer. This year, he shared illuminating details of his work with Heartcore, his record label. Itās become a place not only for his own releases, but a platform for deserving new artists whoāve profited from his attention. Theyāve released over 20 records in nine years, and instituted a program where an employee of the label visits refugee camps in Europe and records childrenās songs. Rosenwinkel then recruits master musician friends to create parts and arrangements to fill out the recording. All proceeds benefit the children.
Kurt expanded on these ventures while teaching at the guitar camp in late August. āI always wanted to start my own business,ā he said. āI decided to build Heartcore as a vehicle for representing the light in music, how it illuminates the contours of our souls. In 2017, when we started, the landscape was pretty desolate. Old constructs were crumbling. So I gathered my resources, not only to release my own work, but to experience the joy of finding some cat tearing it up for whom I could provide a platform. We work really hard to spread this incredible music around the world, and Iām truly proud of what weāve done.ā
YouTube It
This grainy video captures part of a legendary Rosenwinkel set at his homebase, Smalls, in March 1997.
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"I donāt like any type of art that has to be explained."
The profoundly prolific guitarist leads his band of tricksters through a surrealist sonic exploration of deep, esoteric rhythms and intricate interplay on Thisness.
On his new album Thisness, Miles Okazaki is credited as playing guitar, voice, and robots. If you imagine that the reference to robots is some sort of artsy kitschālike trapping a Roomba Robot Vacuum into a tight space to sample its struggles as it percussively barrels into the four wallsāyouāre very far off the mark. Okazakiāwho has an elite academic pedigree with degrees from Harvard, Manhattan School of Music, and Julliard, and currently holds a faculty position at Princeton University (after leaving a post at the University of Michigan, to which he commuted weekly from his home in Brooklyn for eight years)āwasnāt kidding.
āThe robots are machines that I made in Max/MSP,ā clarifies Okazaki. (Max/MSP is visual programming language for music and multimedia.) āItās kind of a long story, but Iāve been doing this stuff on the side for 20 years or so. Some of the music theory, some of the conceptual stuff involved in the album, I programmed into these things that I built. These improvising machines can do things that humans canāt do. Theyāll play faster than humans, but theyāll fit in because theyāre playing the same type of material.ā
I'll Build a World, by Miles Okazaki
Okazaki explains that he creates parameters for the robots to improvise within: āIām just telling this robot, āPlay at this tempo and play this many subdivisions per beatāeight subdivisions or something like thatāso that itās linked up with the drums.ā For pitches, he assigns a scale and can control the phrasing. āIām saying for the pitch choices, āYouāre going to use a chromatic scale and youāre going to play each note of that scale until you exhaust the scale without repeating a note,ā which makes a 12-tone row. It could be any scale, but thatās one of the settings that I have made in there. [After each 12-tone row is done] I tell it, āYouāre going to take a little break, but I donāt want it to be the same break every time,ā so that itās a phrase.ā
To get a sound that convincingly blended in with the rest of the tracks, Okazaki had keyboardist Matt Mitchell run the robots through his Prophet Six analog synth. āI wrote a file of them improvising and ran that file through the synth,ā explains Okazaki. āMatt would do the sounds for it,ā so both the robots and Mitchell used the same Prophet Six in their own way.
āIāve never been that interested in imitating anybodyās style.ā
Okazaki, a family man with three children, seems busy in all parts of his life, but he must have learned to maximize his time because heās incredibly productive. In 2018, he recorded his magnum opus, the critically acclaimed Workāa five-hour, 70-song marathon of the complete works of Thelonious Monk, all performed on solo guitar. Itās a project heās wanted to do since his teen years. But in the process, he labored so relentlessly that he ignored his bodyās warning signs and suffered a repetitive stress injury. That didnāt stop him from intensely preparing for and entering the New York City Marathon just a few months later. When that chapter was over, Okazaki again focused on his musical pursuits and proceeded to record several more albums, both as a leader and side musician.
Thisness is Okazakiās fifth album in a three-year period and reflects his collaborative approach. It features his Trickster band, which includes Mitchell on keyboards, Anthony Tidd on electric bass, and Sean Rickman on drums. Okazaki has worked with each of these musicians for years, both in his own group and in saxophonist Steve Colemanās, and theyāve developed a creative relationship that made it possible to record complex music quickly. The entire album was recorded over a two-day span with the quartet recording live on day one and overdubs the following day.
The Trickster band (left to right): bassist Anthony Tidd, keyboardist Matt Mitchell, drummer Sean Rickman, and Miles Okazaki.
And the music on Thisness is incredibly complex. Though Okazaki has studied Indian music seriously, his compositions are also somewhat reminiscent of contemporary Western classical music. Youāll see no shortage of odd note groupings, polyrhythms, and mixed meters carving out space for intricate atonal melodies throughout. Plenty of advanced jazz musicians that proudly boast about their ability to play John Coltraneās āCountdownā in all 12 keys would cower in fear if they were asked to perform some of Okazakiās works.
Despite the puzzling, esoteric nature of his compositions, Okazakiās roots draw from the jazz tradition. After initially starting on classical guitar at age 6, he developed an interest in jazz at 12 and was doing solo guitar gigs at a local Italian restaurant by age 13. His first guitar teachers were Michael Townsend and Chuck Easton (a bebop-influenced Berklee grad), and he took music theory group classes in a cabin in the woods with a teacher named Alex Fowler.
Miles Okazakiās Gear
Miles Okazaki can be seen with a host of instruments, but his 1978 Gibson ES-175, which has a Charlie Christian pickup, is his most common 6-string companion.
Photo by John Rogers
Guitars
ā¢ 1937 Gibson L-50
ā¢ 1940 Gibson ES-150 Charlie Christian (bought with matching EH-150 amp)
ā¢ 1963 Gibson C-O Classical
ā¢ 1978 Gibson ES-175 with Charlie Christian pickup
ā¢ 2018 Slaman āPaulettaā with Charlie Christian pickup modified with adjustable pole pieces drilled into the blade. A hum-canceling coil was recently added by Ilitch Electronics.
ā¢ 2002 Yamaha SA2200
ā¢ 2016 Kiesel HH2
ā¢ 2008 Caius quarter-tone guitar
Amps
ā¢ Quilter Aviator Cub
ā¢ Quilter Tone Block 200
ā¢ Raezerās Edge Twin 8 cabinet
Effects
ā¢ Boss OC-2 Octave
ā¢ Boomerang III Phrase Sampler with Side Car controller
ā¢ One Control Mosquito Blender Expressio
ā¢ Gamechanger Audio Plus Pedal
ā¢ Dunlop CBM95 Cry Baby Mini Wah
ā¢ Boss RV-5 Digital Reverb
ā¢ Analog Man Peppermint Fuzz
ā¢ MXR GT-OD
ā¢ Electro-Harmonix Micro POG
ā¢ Dunlop DVP4 Volume
ā¢ Sonic Research ST-300 tuner
Strings and Picks
ā¢ Thomastik-Infeld Flatwound .013s (Gibson ES-150 Charlie Christian and Slaman āPaulettaā)
ā¢ Thomastik-Infeld Flatwound .014s (Gibson ES-175 with Charlie Christian pickup and Caius)
ā¢ Thomastik-Infeld Flatwound .012s (Yamaha SA2200)
ā¢ Thomastik-Infeld Flatwound .011s (Kiesel HH2)
ā¢ DāAddario Roundwound .014s (Gibson L-50)
ā¢ DāAddario Pro-Arte high tension nylon (Gibson C-O)
ā¢ Fender .88 mm for .012 strings, 1.0 mm for .014 strings
ā¢ Homemade picks using Pick Punch (Preferred material is American Express Delta Sky Miles Credit Card)
ā¢ Ilitch Electronics Driftwood pick
ā¢ Knobby picks bought from an Instagram metal shredder
During his teens, Okazaki went through a jazz-snob phase, and although he hails from Port Townsend, Washington, he never got into the nearby Seattle scene. āThe ā90s, Nirvana and Soundgarden.ā¦ No, I kind of missed all that,ā he admits. āI was there, but I was into Wes Montgomery and Thelonious Monk. I was stuck in the ā60s and ā50s at that point.ā He still cites those musicians, in addition to Grant Green, George Benson, and Charlie Christian (whom he hailed as āthe greatest guitarist that ever livedā in a blog post) as influences.
After attending Harvard University, where he earned a bachelorās degree in English Literature, Okazaki came to New York to pursue his masterās degree in guitar at Manhattan School of Music. There, he found a mentor in Rodney Jones, a jazz/R&B player with tremendous chops. āI studied with, and continue to study with, Rodney,ā explains Okazaki. āHe was my teacher from 1997. I worked pretty closely with him for about 10 years, rebuilding my technique. My technique wasnāt good. You know I didnāt really have a teacher before him that really talked about guitar so much. I had teachers, but it was more just sort of like other people from other instruments. His technique is based on a hybrid George Benson type of deal. It has to do with the picking, but also there are many, many things that have to do with micro movements of the right hand. So, I spent a long time studying that. I still donāt really play like that, but I play kind of like a hybrid version of his hybrid version. Now mine is mixed with some other stuff.ā
TIDBIT: On his new album, Okazaki creatively repurposed an influence in his approach to āAnd Wait for Youā: āI played a piece of a Charlie Christian solo that Iām kind of riffing on. Thatās a phrase from āStompinā at the Savoyā but obviously the context here is a little different.ā
Jones referred Okazaki to legendary saxophonist Stanley Turrentine, and Okazaki did a few gigs with the soul-jazz master shortly before his passing in 2000. It was around this period that Okazaki made his mark on the NYC jazz scene. He worked with vocalist Jane Monheit and was initially cast as a straight-ahead guitarist. āFor a long time, I was just a standards player. I was pigeonholed in that area,ā he recalls. āI did this weird stuff on the sideāwell, I didnāt consider it to be weirdābut it was hard for people in their mind to imagine that you do different things.ā
The guitarist found he was able to fully explore other sides of his playing when he landed a gig with Steve Coleman, whose M-Base Collective created a new language of incredibly challenging, forward-thinking music. From 2008 until 2017, Okazakiās artistry thrived as he played alongside Coleman.
āI donāt know how many people you know that can play in James Brownās band. Itās harder than playing in my band, thatās for sure.ā
Very few players can comfortably hang with both the down-to-earth, bluesy jazz sounds of George Benson and the futuristic, ultra-heady maze of Colemanās music like Okazaki can. The guitarist sees the two approaches as sharing common heritage. āBensonās language is blues and R&B, and Steve Colemanās is, too. Thereās different theories and stuff behind it, but itās not technically different to me,ā he explains.
āIf it was language, Iām interested in the grammar, not so much what language Iām speaking about,ā he explains. āOr if it was cooking, I might be interested in the principles of āhow do you cook a piece of meat,ā as opposed to, āIām doing French cooking.ā George Benson has a style for sure, and a lot of people, when they learn about George Benson, will also sort of imitate his style. Iāve never been that interested in imitating anybodyās style. I kind of want to have my own style.ā
Trickster performs during their recent residency at SEEDS:: Brooklyn.
Photo by Alain Metrailler
Okazakiās style is radically different from both the sounds of his main guitar influences and other offerings in todayās jazz landscape. His abstruse music has been called academic, but thatās a label the guitarist isnāt particularly fond of. āI would push back a little on āacademicā because, first of all, I donāt like academic music,ā he says. āI donāt like any type of art that has to be explained. When I go to an art museum, I donāt want to have to read the little blurb. I donāt want anybody to have to know anything about music to appreciate it. There are things involved in how itās made that are interesting to me, but I donāt care if theyāre interesting to anybody else, or I donāt want that to be a feature of it thatās really that important, unless people want to look for that.ā
For Okazaki, his music might be also called academic, or complex, or cerebral, but that doesnāt explain his purpose, or set him apart. āJames Brown is complex, or Robert Johnson is complex,ā he says. āAll these things are complex, meaning that theyāre not easily explained. I donāt know how many people you know that can play in James Brownās band. Itās harder than playing in my band, thatās for sure.ā
āThe test is: Does it sound good, or does it not sound good? Thatās the only question for me.ā
Complexity comes in many forms. Just because a piece of music happens to be based on one chord āthat doesnāt mean that itās simple,ā Okazaki observes. He believes the opposite is true as well. āThere are things that take a lot of work, and thereās a lot of machinations involved, and a lot of manipulation of materials and thought, and construction, and it still sounds like shit,ā he laughs. āAnd there are things that are just one chord and amazing.ā
As much as Okazaki is known as a musical thinker who can throw down some heavy information in his compositions and playing, what matters most is how it sounds. āIt might look good on paper, but if it doesnāt sound like anything, then itās not good,ā he says. āThe test is: Does it sound good, or does it not sound good? Thatās the only question for me.āTrickster's Dream - "The Lighthouse"
The Trickster band was scheduled to go on a six-week tour starting in May 2020 but got derailed by the Covid lockdowns. Instead, they created a video concert featuring music from Okazakiās 2019 release, The Sky Below. This version of āThe Lighthouseā is from those sessions and captures the band conjuring the energy and spirit of playing to a captive audience.