Guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel is playing two nights in Philly at Chris’s Jazz Cafe. Last night’s two sets were marvelous — he’s got Mark Turner on tenor, Aaron Parks on piano, Joe Martin on bass and Rodney Green on drums. Plenty of new material, plus heated renditions of “Zhivago,” “Use of Light,” “A Life Unfolds” and others. Kurt is no longer recording for Verve, a label teetering on the edge of oblivion; he’ll soon put out a live recording from the Village Vanguard on his own imprint.
The last half-dozen times I’ve seen Rosenwinkel it’s been at the Vanguard, in a climate of total audience absorption. There’s nothing quite like it anywhere else. At Chris’s the first-set crowd was terrific. But during the second set, the band had to compete with a noisy and oblivious bunch at the bar. Morale seemed to sag. A few in front started murmuring “shhh…” but it was Kurt himself who finally yelled “Shut Up!” Unprofessional? No, urgently necessary. Feeling antsy and rebellious, perhaps, he called “Milestones,” a bebop standard, at a furious tempo. Propelled by Green’s extraordinary drumming, he played a solo that left everyone aghast. Not sure if it was that or the “shut up,” but people were paying attention now. An inspiring instance of onstage recovery, of battling anomie with sheer artistic will. Takes quite a reserve of talent to pull it off.
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