Heartcore

Kurt Rosenwinkel | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 12, 2003)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Verve
• ASIN: B0000A0I90
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #150,938 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant amalgam, August 18, 2003

By 

Jan P. Dennis "Longboard jazzer" (Monument, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Heartcore (Audio CD)

It's never easy to create genuinely new music.

So when an artist as accomplished as jazz guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel even attempts it, we should take a careful look. When it's pulled off, we have reason to get excited.

Jazz, especially, seems a difficult music to drag into the future, what with its hoary tradition, its huge standards presence, its informal council of ruling elders. So when a bright young upstart like Rosenwinkel teams up with hip-hop producer Q-Tip, one has every reason to be leery of the result.

Well, I'm here to tell you that you can put to rest fears of diluted quasi-jazz, such as you get on, e.g., The Detroit Experiment. What's happening here is that a hip-hop vibe has successfully been mapped onto a genuine jazz esthetic, with the results sounding eminently in tune with an authentic jazz sensibility. That is, we get novelty and tradition working hand-in-hand. An analog might be world jazz such as Egberto Gismonti or the Intercontinentals (Bill Frisell's new band) or Roswell Rudd in Mali have produced. The trick in these musical fusions is to retain an authentic jazz vibe in the presence of alien influences.

Of course, jazz has been doing this sort of thing for a long time. Essentially a blend of African rhythms, European classical harmonies, and some weird Creole vibe, the first jazz that emerged from New Orleans around the turn of the 20th century was itself a hodge-podge. Then Dizzy Gillespie with Afro-Cuban jazz and Sonny Rollins with numbers like "St. Thomas" took it further along. Artists like Andy Narell, Cyro Baptista, Caribbean Jazz Project, and Safa have successfully moved it along new tangents.

The thing that's genuinely original about Rosenwinkel's record is that it's a fusion disc with little or no precedent--not electric Miles, not Weather Report, not MMW, not plugged in Scofield, not Matthew Shipp, not the Greyboy Allstars, not the new Roy Hargrove, not Phish, not Secret Chiefs Three, not Uri Caine, not anything! That's because he manages to retain--at least to these ears--more of an authentic jazz sensibility than, say, Hargrove's Hard Groove, while at the same time evoking a truer hip-hop vibe.

Quite an accomplishment.

But what does it sound like? That's a little hard to describe. A more listener-friendly version of Egberto Gismonti's Brazilian-label records? Kinda, but not quite. Something like Matthew Shipp's ambient-jazz? Again, kinda, but not quite. Probably the closest thing is Brad Mehldau's Largo combined with Chris Potter's Traveling Mercies filtered through some bizarre Frisell/Dave Douglas/Harold Budd/Daniel Lanois vibe, but even that doesn't really catch it.

In any case, I'm absolutely blown away by this disc, which marks not only a giant step forward in Kurt Rosenwinkel's career, but in the future of jazz music.

Another in the astounding string of truly remarkable jazz discs to come out in 2003.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Top Christmas Present!, January 5, 2004

By 

Simon Parker (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heartcore (Audio CD)

I got this for Christmas this year and it sure beats the crap out another pair of socks! I hate to join the other reviewers in kicking Mr Nicholas (see below) whilst he is down but he is completely wrong in his assesment of this great album - stick to the smooth rubbish pal!

This is one of the freshest records I have heard. When listening to the record you think of Weather Report, Miles and McLaughlin but ultimately this is a very original piece of work. Yes you can use the words ambient and fusion to describe the feel of the album but there is lots of great jazz playing throughout. It is very intersting to hear players such as Rosenwinkle and Mark Turner (who contributes strongly) play in a new context.

Full marks for trying someting new. This is a well realised concept and the album plays well as a whole with the tracks fitting into a good order which is unusual these days. This is an album that really grows on you - it is not an obvious winner but after a couple of listens you will find it hard to get it out of the CD player. If you are at all adventurous or have liked previous albums by Rosenwinkle or Turner get this now. If you think jazz died with "In a Silent Way" then this isn't for you! This is my first ever e-review - so this clearly made an impression on me!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars terrible???, September 4, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Heartcore (Audio CD)

Like Bird, Coltrane, Monk, Mingus, and countless others, Rosenwinkel can at first be hard to listen to because he is utterly unique and unorthodox. Like them, he will continue to be dismissed by people like the above Mr. Nicholas because he's not producing a decent copy of what's already been done a zillion times. I don't mean to put Rosenwinkel on the level of these other guys, but I do believe he is one of the few voices who continues to keep jazz alive by pushing it forward. If Rosenwinkel had done another "The Next Step" album and added some sampling in production, or gone the "acid jazz" route and pretended to innovate by playing jazz licks over watered down hip hop, he would probably sell about ten times as many albums. But instead he offers a project that's more about musical expression than marketability. It's taken me a couple weeks to get into this album, because it doesn't conform to my idea of what jazz guitar should be or what electronic music should be. That's because Rosenwinkel is not cutting from one style of music and pasting it onto another. He is working in a different medium, and the composition, playing and production fits the medium.
And Mark Whitfield?? If Mr. Nicholas was capable of listening to Rosenwinkel on a deeper level, he'd hear a much deeper connection to Wes, Benson and Martino than the slew of "straight ahead" copycats. Mr. Nicholas reveals his ignorance in the above review by offering a Benson clone (and not even one of the best at that) as a better alternative to Rosenwinkel. I for one am tired of buying jazz guitar albums and hearing great players who don't reach beyond what's been done ad nauseam. If jazz is going to be kept alive, great musicians need to take risks, and critics like Mr. Nicholas need to shut their mouths and open their minds and ears. I'm not as excited (yet) by this album as I am by The Next Step. But it's well worth fifteen bucks.