Kurt Rosenwinkel, Undercover, Heartcore ****

All about in-person flow and one of the best live group jazz releases of 2023 to date: Fresh from winning the 2023 Deutscher for guitar this live at the Village Vanguard release from guitar icon Kurt Rosenwinkel is quite somehing and continues a …

Published: 1 Jun 2023. Updated: 10 months.

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All about in-person flow and one of the best live group jazz releases of 2023 to date: Fresh from winning the 2023 Deutscher for guitar this live at the Village Vanguard release from guitar icon Kurt Rosenwinkel is quite somehing and continues a purple patch of recordings. Each piece is quite extended and you get a very elastic pulse to 'The Past Intake' for instance provided by Greg Hutchinson known for his work with Soweto Kinch - on Soweto magnum opus White Juju for instance - and Sarah McKenzie within the last decade and wonderfully wise Eric Reed on 2014's Groovewise - Rosenwinkel's solo here you could listen to on a continuous loop practically all day. As for Aaron Parks - the fabulous one time Blanchardian whose best work is the solo piano album, the Sun Chung produced, Arborescence released in 2013 - seizes the balladic high ground on 'Solé' where Rosenwinkel responds with a lulling almost chiming brotherly response and later there is a theme that recalls a little intimation uncannily of 'Moritat'. For sheer beat Branford Marsalis Quartet legend double bassist Eric Revis fabulous last year on Eastside Romp delivers big time on 'Our Secret World' Parks switching to keys. Recorded in 2022 during a week-long residency in the fabled New York jazz club the Vanguard comprised of the Berlin based American Rosenwinkel's originals, the title track kept to last is the longest piece just shy of 13 minutes and thrives on an addictive groove. In tune with the space but looking to tomorrow rather than resting on any past smug sense of sound imagaining: that's one takeaway. How it is achieved is partly the electric vibe - in all sorts of senses - that radiates in ever increasing circles.

Out on 23 June. 'Solé' is streaming

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Nils Økland and Sigbjørn Apeland, Glimmer, ECM ***1/2

Ostensibly a Hardanger fiddle and harmonium duo album - the Hardanger, revered in Norway, is a folk fiddle that has four bowed strings and an additional four sympathetic strings beneath the bridge. It sounds pretty ancient and suitably its first …

Published: 1 Jun 2023. Updated: 10 months.

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Ostensibly a Hardanger fiddle and harmonium duo album - the Hardanger, revered in Norway, is a folk fiddle that has four bowed strings and an additional four sympathetic strings beneath the bridge. It sounds pretty ancient and suitably its first heyday was as long ago as the 18th century. Best track to our ears not being at all specialist in Norwegian folk music but knowing some of violinist Nils Økland's recordings in various settings and having heard him and Apeland play live near Bergen in a trio called 1982, the traditional 'O Venner' works so hauntingly well. And what a beautifully conveyed suitably antique sounding atmosphere is evoked on this Etne studio recording that includes music written for a film about the 19th century Norwegian painter Lars Hertervig. Glimmer is for traditional music fans primarily - not really jazz appreciators. But like a process of photosynthesis moving from one music to another it is a natural enough process to experience your listening transition however mysteriously across light into an aborption of such a lambent chemically reactive, in this case, centuries distilled end result.

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Nils Økland, photo: Malene Kristopine Økland/ECM. 'O Du Min Immanuel' is streaming ahead of the full Glimmer release on 16 June