Kurt Rosenwinkel and OJM: Our Secret World

Kurt Rosenwinkel has been a smart and sometimes supercharged new jazz guitarist for a while now, and his bands and recording projects have been outstanding.  His "Standards Trio" released a truly fine disc in 2009 (check out my review, HERE) and his efforts in conjunction with Mark Turner on tenor have created a stellar guitar/sex pairing.  Rosenwinkel plays with jazz invention and not a little fire, placing him in the Scofield/Frisell/Abercrombie camp but a generation younger and more vital.

Our Secret World places him in front of a big band for the first time.  Check out my PopMatters review HERE.  This is a Portuguese band called the Orchestra de Jazz de Matosinhos, and their arrangers do intriguing things with Rosenwinkel's own tunes, translating their cascading lines to brass and woodwinds.  The band plays with power and assurance.

The biggest drawback to the disc is that Rosenwinkel is the only soloist on every tune but one.  He sounds terrific, but that's the whole game.  And the band, for all its technical excellence, never really sounds distinctive as a big band.  The days of big bands with clear, unmistakable personalities is likely over anyway, but you wish for a bit more here.