Kurt Rosenwinkel could be forgiven for sticking to straight jazz. After all, since vibraphonist Gary Burton plucked him out of the Berklee School of Music in 1991, the guitarist has toured and recorded with some of the great names in the field, including Joe Henderson, Paul Motian and Joe Lovano.
Kurt Rosenwinkel has always given us music that has conveyed a sense of masterful story- telling & breathtaking imaginative reach. His significance to the ever-evolving jazz tradition in fact transcends the oft-cited lineage of jazz guitar in much the same way that Thelonious Monk and Wayne Shorter both impacted colleagues much beyond the scope of their respective instruments. For what has perhaps distinguished Kurt more than anything is his one-of-a-kind compositional voice – full of mystery and power, marked by an effortless marriage of high complexity and simple, undeniable emotional appeal.
With a career spanning almost twenty-five years, collaborating with dynamic peers like Brad Mehldau, Brian Blade, Mark Turner, Joshua Redman, Chris Potter; and esteemed jazz elders like Joe Henderson, Paul Motian and Gary Burton, Rosenwinkel’s indelible mark in music is the consummation of being steeped in the rich and deep traditions of jazz, springing off of the shoulders of such vital underpinnings to elevate his own art to new heights, evolving the language in a way no other guitarist has since his arrival.