StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Spotlight on Kurt Rosenwinkel

This week, our video spotlight falls on guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, who's coming to town to perform starting next Wednesday, February 5 through Sunday, February 9 at Jazz St. Louis.

Taking the slot in the season schedule once announced for fellow guitarist Pat Martino, it's been a long time between visits for Rosenwinkel, who will be playing his first shows here as a leader since 2006, when he headlined a week at what then was called Jazz at the Bistro.

Back then, he was still considered something of an up-and-coming player; now, he's one of the busiest guitarists in jazz, considered a mainstay of the scene in New York City and internationally.

Rosenwinkel, who will turn 50 this year, grew up in Philadelphia and studied at Berklee College of Music until getting hired to tour with vibraphonist Gary Burton. Moving to Brooklyn, he worked with drummers Paul Motian and Brian Blade, saxophonist Joe Henderson and later, saxophonists Mark Turner and Joel Frahm, pianist Brad Mehldau, and more. In addition to appearing on dozens of albums as a collaborator and sideman, Rosenwinkel since 1996 has recorded a dozen of his own as a bandleader in settings ranging from trio to big band, the most recent being 2017's Caipi.

Today's collection of clips pulls together a half-dozen of the guitarist's most recent performances available via online video, starting up above with a half-hour long excerpt from a set recorded last month at the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) annual trade show in Los Angeles.

After the jump, you can see Rosenwinkel with fellow Philadelphians Joey DeFrancesco on organ, Christian McBride on bass, and Lil' John Roberts on drums, performing Benny Golson's "Along Came Betty" during their "Philly Reunion" gig last month at the Blue Note in New York City.

That's followed by a clip of the guitarist performing "Under It All" on August 2, 2019 in Bitonto, Italy, and then another, longer excerpt from the same show, also featuring pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Eric Revis and drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts.

Next, it's an excerpt from another performance by the same ensemble, recorded four days later at the Peperoncino Jazz Festival in Calabria, Italy.

The final video shows Rosenwinkel playing the standard "All or Nothing At All" at a gig in 2018 with bassist Alex Claffy and drummer Mark Whitfield Jr.

For more about Kurt Rosenwinkel, read his interview from September 2019 at BandOnTheWall.org, in which he discusses his work with the free improv trio Bandit 65; his interview published on the improvisational music website Meloport; and his 2017 interview with the NYC website Jazz Trail.

You can see the rest of today's videos after the jump...