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THE GREAT POLISH SONGBOOK…Kurt Rosenwinkel & Jean-Paul Brodbeck: The Chopin Project

Yeah, I know…”is this one of those ‘jazz meets classical projects’ where neither types of fans are satisfied?”

“Au, Contrare!”

If you didn’t know that the ten songs on this album were composed by the pianist Frederic Chopin, you ‘d never associate the melodies with great romantic. Guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel and pianist Jean-Paul Brodbeck team together with Jorge Rossy/g and Lukas Traxel/b to use Chopin’s Liszt of originals as inspirational starting points (and not paint by numbers forms) for the band’s template of ideas.

Thus, you get Rosenwinkel and Brodbeck deep and bluesy around Rossy’s snappy sticks on “Prelude in E-Flat minor”, and team delves into ESP-era Miles Davis on a post bop read of “Prelude in B minor”. Rosenwinkel is richly impressionistic on the lovely “Nocturne in C-sharp minor” and glistens to “Valse in C-sharp minor” while he dances through Rossy’s cymbals on “’Raindrop’ Prelude in D-flat major”. Brodbeck, with the most to lose in a Chopin-inspired album, is his own man, gentle on “Nouvelle Etude in A-flat major” and flowing for “Prelude in E major” with each piece a novella in its own right.

To their credit, these gents could have easily scratched out Chopin’s name for the composing credits, as this music is simply original romanticism at its jazzy best. Bon appetite!