Product Review

What is "the remedy"? Ask a simple question and you may get a simple answer. "Music is the remedy," replies Kurt Rosenwinkel. It's hard to imagine a more suitable title, then, for the guitarist's brilliant new album, The Remedy: Live at the Village Vanguard. With this two-disc release, Rosenwinkel puts forward his entry in a long line of historic live recordings from the famed New York jazz club, following in the footsteps of John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Sonny Rollins, Keith Jarrett, Joe Henderson, Woody Shaw and others. Like his friends and peers Brad Mehldau, Chris Potter, The Bad Plus and others, Rosenwinkel has become a regular and much- valued presence at the Vanguard, helping to carry the club's mission forward into the new millennium. One of the most original and influential guitarists, jazz musicians & composers of his generation, Rosenwinkel is heard on The Remedy leading a marvelous quintet, with Mark Turner, his longtime musical partner, on tenor sax; Aaron Goldberg on piano; Joe Martin on bass; and Eric Harland on drums. The rapport between the players is refined and explosive. Much of the material played during that auspicious January week in 2006 was new and previously unrecorded. The Remedy marks the first live documentation of Rosenwinkel's touring group recorded live in a venue that has had much to do with the development of its group sound.