Mt. Airy jazz legend playing Rotary Club benefit Sunday

Posted 4/25/18

Kurt Rosenwinkel, a Mt. Airy native and famed jazz guitarist, and other musicians will perform to benefit the Chestnut Hill Rotary Club in a concert, “Jazz in the Great Northwest,” on Sunday, …

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Mt. Airy jazz legend playing Rotary Club benefit Sunday

Posted

Kurt Rosenwinkel, a Mt. Airy native and famed jazz guitarist, and other musicians will perform to benefit the Chestnut Hill Rotary Club in a concert, “Jazz in the Great Northwest,” on Sunday, April 29, 4 to 8 p.m., at the Commodore Barry Club, 6815 Emlen St. in Mt Airy.[/caption]

by Len Lear

He may not be a household name to most of us, but to jazz aficionados, Kurt Rosenwinkel, 47, who grew up on Wellesley Road in Mt. Airy, is the Rolls Royce of jazz guitarists. If you check out his discography on the internet, you will find that he has been the lead musician on 13 albums, a collaborator on five more and a sideman on an astonishing 74 albums. You’d be hard pressed to find a great jazz musician from the last three decades he has not played with.

“Rosenwinkel’s indelible mark in music,” one critic wrote, “is the consummation of being steeped in the rich and deep traditions of jazz … to elevate his own art to new heights, evolving the language in a way no other guitarist has since his arrival.”

The Chestnut Hill Rotary Club is sponsoring a concert, “Jazz in the Great Northwest,” on Sunday, April 29, 4 to 8 p.m., at the Commodore Barry Club, 6815 Emlen St. in Mt Airy. There will be a buffet dinner and lots of musicians with local ties, including Rosenwinkel.

“I've always wanted to be a musician as long as I can remember,” Kurt, who now lives in Berlin, Germany, told us last week. “I used to pretend to play guitar with tennis rackets, and I built rock concert stages in my room with my best friend Gordon, playing along to Kiss and Peter Frampton.”

You might say that Kurt inherited musical talent from his parents. “My mom was on track to be a concert pianist,” he said, “and still is a very dedicated classical pianist, studying with a world renowned Russian pianist. My dad plays piano, improvising on standards in a style of his own, a kind of rolling Errol Garner kind of way, harmonically very intriguing and with great fantasy.

“My brother Eric is a very good guitarist. He had a band in high school called Urban Fall, which could have easily become a huge worldwide success if the fates had wanted it. As it happened, people went different ways, but he still is playing all the time and plays everything from giant steps to intense rock.”

Kurt attended the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts in center city and then majored in jazz performance at Berklee College of Music in Boston. He left Berklee after two and a half years, however, to tour with Gary Burton, the dean of Berklee at the time.

Rosenwinkel's influences include John Coltrane, Pat Metheny, Allan Holdsworth, Tal Farlow, George Van Eps, Bill Frisell and Alex Lifeson, among others. But Kurt is no one-trick pony, having performed in numerous musical genres. “I have played in lots of different bands,” he said. “Ska, Christian rock, hard core punk, avant-garde, free improvisation, hip hop, funk, synth-pop, singer-songwriter, grunge, hard rock, bebop, post-bop, original music of many kinds. It goes on and on...”

After recording for several different labels, Kurt recently started his own label, Heartcore Records. According to Kurt, the name Heartcore “is a recognition and celebration of the fact that we are all together in this world, and we must come together in spirit. Thus, the name Heartcore perfectly exemplifies this attitude: music with heart, from the core, and hardcore, meaning created with complete dedication.”

Heartcore will also be involved in various beneficial and educational projects. They recently released their first album, “Caipi.” The second release will be an album by Pedro Martins, a young musician from Brazil.

In a recent interview with jazzfuel.com, Kurt said, “There’s no substitute for practical experience when it comes to growing as a jazz musician … You gotta get out there, whether it’s with older cats or your friends or anything really … When I left my previous label, I was in touch with some major labels and could have gone that route, but I realized it would be more interesting to start my own label.”

Like many musicians, Kurt has very string opinions about the deleterious effects of free internet music on the music industry. “Spotify is telling the artists that their music has no value, and yet they make literally billions of dollars off it. I am sure consumers love it, but it is an incredibly damaging thing for music creation itself.

“It takes investment to make music, and if we get nothing back, then how are we going to bring the world more music? I think there needs to be some governmental regulation of the industry to achieve some kind of fairness and stop this raping of artists. I think it’s a pretty basic issue.”

For more information about the Rotary Club benefit concert: 215-248-3762 or info@chestnuthillrotary.org.

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