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*** Kurt Rosenwinkel

THE NEXT STEP

(Verve)

Musicians go for guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel because of the brainy ebb and flow of his improvisations — the expansive harmonic vocabulary expressed in an endless array of chord substitutions, plus quirky, conversational phrasing that bucks the bebop convention of rat-a-tat eighth notes. Rosenwinkel is a virtuoso, all right, but on The Next Step (his second album for Verve) he’s also got the tunes and the band. Every piece balances careful design with spontaneous invention. “Dr. Zhivago” opens with a stop-start theme driven by drummer Jeff Ballard’s brushes, then releases into a passage of relentlessly surging triple meter. This number has the ingenious melodic and harmonic turns of some lost show tune by Loesser or Sondheim, but with just the right dash of contemporary funk.

As for the band, they’ve been working together now for seven years, and that means maximum flexibility for extended explorations. Rosenwinkel and saxophonist Mark Turner negotiate angular bopping unison themes or spar in simultaneous improvisations. Bassist Ben Street and drummer Jeff Ballard have the bottom covered, so that when the leader switches to piano for the title tune, everyone stays together, from the opening, impressionist Bill Evans chords through the march-like theme and the “soul jazz” coda.

— Jon Garelick