I DON’T THINK THERE WAS A SINGLE PERSON THAT WASN’T SURPRISED AND AMAZED BY THE “NEW” SOUNDS THAT GUITARIST KURT ROSENWINKEL DELIVERED ON THE GROUNDBREAKING ALBUM HEARTCORE BACK IN 2003. THE MIX OF ELECTRONIC PULSES WITH A UNIQUE MIX OF GUITAR AND VOCAL HARMONY PERKED UP EVERYONE’S EARS.
MANY ARTISTS WOULD HAVE SIMPLY CONTINUED A WINNING FORMULA, BUT AS ROSENWINKEL HAS DEMONSTATED THROUGHOUT HIS CAREER, THAT ALBUM, AND HIS SUBSEQUENT CATALOGUE, IS A LITERAL “RECORD” OF WHERE HIS IS MUSICALLY, PERSONALLY AND ARTISTICALLY.
HE HAS RELEASED A COLLECTION OF ALBUMS WITH HIS EARLY PARTNER, TENOR SAXIST MARK TURNER, AS WELL AS CREATIVE TRIO SESSIONS, AN ALBUM IN WHICH HE PLAYS ALL OF THE INSTRUMENTS AND SINGS ACCESSIBLE BRAZILIAN THEMES AS WELL AS FORMING A LOOSE AND WILD IMPROVISATORY TRIO FOR A WILD RIDE OF A LIVE RECORDING.
MOST RECENTLY, HE’S RETURNED TO A TRIO FORMAT TO REVISIT JAZZ STANDARDS, SOMETHING THAT HE HAS DONE IN THE PAST A COUPLE OF TIMES BEFORE.
WE RECENTLY HAD A NICE PHONE CONVERSATION WITH KURT, WHO WAS IN HIS BERLIN HOME, SIDELINED BY THE LOCKDOWN OF THE COVID CRISIS.
HOW ARE YOU HOLDING UP WITH THE CORONAVIRUS
I’m at home in Berlin with my girlfriend and two sons, kind of chilling. It’s cool; my idea of a vacation is just to be home and locked inside, so this is perfect.
IT’S AN INTROVERT’S DREAM!
Exactly! (laughs)
YOU HAVE TWO NEW, ALMOST SIMULTANEOUS, RELEASES. THEY SEEM TO REFLECT SOMETHING YOU SAID YEARS AGO ABOUT WANTING TO START YOUR OWN LABEL BACK WHEN YOU WERE STILL WITH VERVE. YOU HAVE FINALLY ACCOMPLISHED THAT WITH HEARTCORE RECORDS.
I was lucky at the time that my manager offered to provide that framework for my career. He was in a good position at that time to do that, and then later I became in a good position to do it myself.
YOUR LATEST ALBUM, ANGELS AROUND, IS A RETURN TO A FORMAT THAT YOU SEEM COMFORTABLE WITH, THE TRIO. THIS TIME WITH BASSIST DARIO DEIDDA AND DRUMMER GREGORY HUTCHINSON. WHAT WAS YOUR IMPETUS TO RELEASE A TRIO ALBUM AT THIS TIME, PARTICULARLY AFTER YOUR (ESSENTIALLY) ONE MAN SHOW OF CAIPI?
We had been doing a lot of gigs around Europe, and I’ve been having a great time with this particular trio. Greg and Dario clicked so well that I felt that it was worth it to record the band and put something out.
I only want to put something out if I feel like it’s worthy of people’s attention.
You do a lot of things, but then something comes along that’s really special, and that’s what I like to give to the rest of the world. This was one of those moments, and it came out really well.
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“I only want to put something out if I feel like it’s worthy of people’s attention”
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ALL OF YOUR ALBUMS HAVE A HEFTY DOSE OF THELONIOUS MONK. WHAT IS A GUITARIST’S ATTRACTION TO HIM?
I also play piano, which I love. Those sounds are easier to gravitate to on piano, with the half steps, clusters, dissonant sounds and just the logic of the piano.
Monk makes a lot more sense on piano than guitar; you’ve got to figure out some way to access it on guitar, which is not easy. But, if you’re coming from the piano, and you just love those sounds, then you’re going to gravitate to it, no matter what instrument you’re playing.
I love Monk. I fell in love with his music, and he’s just a beautiful song writer.
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“Monk makes a lot more sense on piano than guitar; you’ve got to figure out some way to access it on guitar, which is not easy”
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WHAT ALBUM OF SONG OF HIS SEALED THE DEAL WITH YOU?
Underground was what really hooked me in. It’s a great album.
THE FIRST ALBUM YOU EVER RELEASED, 1996’S EAST COAST LOVE AFFAIR, JUST GOT REISSUED ON FRESH SOUND RECORDS. HOW WOULD YOU COMPARE TODAY’S KURT ROSENWINKEL TO THAT YOUNG MAN?
I’ve got a little more grey hair. (laughs) I’m a lot happier. These trio albums are like skipping stones over my career. It was my first album, and then the middle with Reflections (in 2009),and then here. Hopefully this is not the end of my career (laughs).
The trio is a format that always in action. When it develops to a point of being ready at some moment, then it blossoms into an album. Each one is different 747.
Obviously I’ve evolved as both a player and a human being, but there are a lot of similarities between them, but all quite different.
COULD YOU HAVE MADE YOUR OTHER ALBUM, SEARCHING THE CONTINUUM, IF YOU DIDN’T HAVE YOUR OWN LABEL?
That’s the great question-I think not.
I had to break free from some of the forces that were pulling at me.
That project was not something that anyone would have recommended I do (laughs), so I had to break free of some things and just decide to do what I wanted to do for artistic reasons, come what may on the other side.
But it’s been amazing, because Bandit ’65 has become a band that a lot of people have become interested in and have responded to very well.
The life of the band is continuing, and people really love the album.
At first we only made a short, small run of physical cds, but we’re going to have to re-up the manufacturing so that we can keep up with people’s demand.
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“That project was not something that anyone would have recommended I do (laughs), so I had to break free of some things and just decide to do what I wanted to do for artistic reasons, come what may on the other side”
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WHAT DID YOU HAVE TO BREAK FREE OF?
My old label. There was a moment when I had to re-organize a lot of fundamental things in my life.
I became my own manager, I switched booking agents, I quit my school, I started my own record label-all to just re-orient my energies towards the future in the way that I wanted. More focused, more pure and distilled in effort in the direction that I wanted in order to be a creator of music.
THIS ALBUM WITH TIM MOTZER (ON GUITAR AND ELECTRONICS) AND GINTAS JANUSONIS (ON PERCUSSION AND DRUMS) IS PRETTY FREE AND SPONTANEOUS. USUALLY WHEN YOU THINK OF THOSE WORDS, WHAT YOU END UP ASSOCIATING WITH IS CACOPHONY. HOW DID YOU AVOID THE PITFALL OF IT NOT SOUNDING LIKE A NEOPOLITAN TRAFFIC JAM?
(laughs) Good question-yeah, I know (laughs).
It’s a very rare find.
Somehow we got together and just started playing, and these songs just magically came out sounding actually fully formed.
That’s something that has always happened. We’ve never talked about the music, never rehearsed or brought in any songs. We literally just go up there with completely blank slates and just start. We go from start to finish 100% completely improvised.
The three of us (with Tim Motzer, Gintas Janusonis) are not only instrumentalists; we’re also producers. So, what we’re doing is going into a kind of complementation on stage . We’re concentrating so deeply and intensely, making millions of micro-decisions at all times . It is a very intense engagement and work that we all three are doing on stage at the same time.
As it naturally grows, we’re all just caring for this thing, helping its shape and making decisions that will guide it in a certain way. It’s a magical combination of cats and energy; it just works!
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“what we’re doing is going into a kind of complementation on stage . We’re concentrating so deeply and intensely, making millions of micro-decisions at all times”
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HAVE YOU DONE THIS IN CONCERT?
Yes, the album is “live” cuts.
WHAT’S THE SHORTEST SONG YOU GUYS HAVE DONE AT A CLUB THIS WAY?
25 minutes (laughs), Just kidding!
When we do an encore we’ll do something short, just go up and play something that takes full shape and resolves in three minutes
The thing that I love about this band is how miraculously the endings are always coming out of nowhere and no one knows when it’s going to happen, but when it does it’s so perfectly parked at the end.
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“The thing that I love about this band is how miraculously the endings are always coming out of nowhere and no one knows when it’s going to happen, but when it does it’s so perfectly parked at the end”
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IN THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SPECTRUM IS YOUR BRAZILIAN ALBUM CAIPI, WHERE YOU PLAY ESSENTIALLY EVERYTHING. WHAT WAS THE MOST DIFFICULT INSTRUMENT TO PLAY FOR THAT RECORDING?
The egg shaker! (laughs) I had to really shed on that one. Everything else was a piece of cake. (laughs)
I have been always making songs in my studio all through the years since I was a little kid. It’s something that I do.
I go home, go down into the studio and start doing a song, and while working it and it needs drums I start doing everything because I’m already there. I’ve always played the rhythm section instruments of drums, bass, keyboards, guitar, percussion and I sing, so I can do it all because I know what it needs and I go for it.
YOUR 2009 ALBUM SEEING PEOPLE GOT LITTLE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. WAS THAT DUE TO LABEL PROBLEMS?
That was actually Roman Off’s album, and I was just a sideman on that one.
THAT BRINGS UP ANOTHER ASPECT OF YOUR CAREER. YOU’VE BEEN A SIDEMAN TO MANY BIG NAMES LIKE GARY BURTON, PAUL MOTIAN, BRIAN BLADE AND BRAD MEHLDAU. IS THERE ANY ARTIST WHO’S BRAIN YOU PICKED THE MOST FOR ADVICE? 1656
Gary Burton taught me how to do my taxes! (laughs)
We had a lot of intellectual discussions back and forth as we’d ride in the car together going to the gigs. He is a brilliant guy, and I learned a lot from him.
He was my first experience in terms of touring internationally, being on the road and playing large venues. A lot of my experiences in the music world were Gary, and Paul Motian.
Paul was a road warrior. Five week train tours, dealing every night with one-nighters. Getting up at six in the morning, taking three trains that last ten hours, then going straight to sound check and hitting it and doing the same thing the next day for five weeks. That’s some serious road chops there; it was a kind of boot camp.
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“Five week train tours, dealing every night with one-nighters. Getting up at six in the morning, taking three trains that last ten hours, then going straight to sound check and hitting it and doing the same thing the next day for five weeks. That’s some serious road chops there; it was a kind of boot camp”
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WHAT GUITARIST WOULD YOU PAY $1000 TO SEE?
Charlie Christian
WHAT BOOKS HAVE INSPIRED YOU?
“Man’s Search For Meaning” by Viktor Frankl. It’s a beautiful book, very important for me. Also “Narcissus and Godman” by Hermann Hesse. I like thinking!
BESIDES MUSIC, WHAT GIVES YOU JOY?
I love to cook. I love to hang out with my kids., They are 13 and 15. They’re into Gangsta Rap and Trap and all that kind of stuff. But they’re smart, one’s taking guitar lessons and learning some Bowie and Beatles.
We were in Berlin, and Eric Clapton was coming through and playing. I sat in with him at the 02 Arena, which is like the Madison Square Garden of Berlin. We were all backstage, the boys, my girlfriend and I. I was hanging out in the hallway talking to Clapton, and introduced him to my son. Clapton asked him, “Do you play an instrument?”, and he said, “Yes, guitar”.
Clapton asked “What songs do you like to play?”, and he answered “Here Comes The Son”.
Clapton said, “I remember when George Harrison played that in my garden”. (laughs)
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“These trio albums are like skipping stones over my career”
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IT’S ALWAYS NICE TO SCORE ‘COOL” POINTS WITH YOUR KIDS
WHAT FUTURE GOALS DO YOU HAVE?
I have so many-that’s one of the things that I’m looking forward to with the sequestered time, as I’m getting finally to some of them.
I want to finish my book, it’s a comprehensive one of all of my compositions. I want to start a book of memoirs, and also a book of poetry.
I’ve always been a writer of words, so there are a lot of things in that area which I want to do and have goals for.
Musically, I have six different albums that I am working on at different stages of completion. I want to make a solo piano album, another quartet album, a Caipi II album. All of those songs are finished; I just have to get it all ready.
I also am doing an album of loops that is a solo project; it has looping and spontaneous song composition.
WHAT DO YOU WANT PEOPLE TO SAY ABOUT YOU WHEN THEY LOWER YOU INTO THE GRAVE?
“He was a good guy. He did good.”
SOMETIMES, IT TAKES RETROSPECTION OF YEARS TO DETERMINE WHO THE MOST INFLUENTIAL MUSICIANS OF OUR CURRENT GENERATION ARE. DON’T MISS OUT ON ONE WHO IS LEADING THE WAY, WITH A CATALOGUE THAT INSPIRES FANS AND MUSICIANS ALIKE.
NO MATTER THE STYLE OR SETTING, KURT ROSENWINKEL’S SOUND IS ALWAYS INVITING, PERSONAL AND ON THE SEARCH FOR NEW LANDS.
LOOK FOR HIM TO HIT THE STATES ONCE WE GET OVER THIS LOCKDOWN AND WATCH ROSENWINKEL PLAY TO HIS BETTER ANGELS.