Kurt Rosenwinkel & Jean-Paul Brodbeck

The Brahms Project
Release Date: May 2, 2025
Label: Heartcore Records

The Brahms Project is the latest release by virtuosic American jazz guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel and renowned Swiss pianist Jean-Paul Brodbeck, alongside bassist Lukas Traxel on bass, and the inimitable drummer Jorge Rossy. Using the themes of Brahms as fertile inspiration for improvisation and creativity, the quartet soars to extraordinary new heights and renders each piece with specific, nuanced, and fully realized detail.

Johannes Brahms, the compositional heir apparent to Beethoven and a figure inextricably linked to the cultural identity and philosophies of the German Romantic cannon, is in many ways the perfect musical subject for a jazz portrait. The composer’s challenging harmonies, overt love of polyrhythms, and robust melodicism provide ample inspiration for re-interpretation and motivic development. The Brahms Project features ten arrangements from the pen of Jean-Paul Brodbeck, whose exemplary skills as a small ensemble orchestrator capture the enigmatic genius of Brahms’ compositions at their fullest and most brilliant. 

“The work of Brahms has had a tremendous emotional impact and influence on my career as an artist, and has set the course for this musical endeavor,” Brodbeck reflects.

The masterful arrangements of The Brahms Project are duly complemented by world-class ensemble playing from Rosenwinkel, Brodbeck, Traxel, and Rossy. In particular, Rosenwinkel, the foremost jazz guitarist of his generation, lends a distinct and powerful melodic voice that drives the ensemble with intensity and forward momentum. The album’s imaginative orchestrations enable the quartet to illuminate Brahms’ music in vivid, contemporary hues, and the resplendent group interplay moves the music into novel and exciting dimensions. Drawing from an eclectic array of the composer’s works—including pieces for cello, solo piano, voice, and orchestra— The Brahms Project features performances that are wildly imaginative deviations from the original yet maintain a wordless reverence for the source material through their thematically relevant improvisations and precise interpretation.

“We aimed to approach these compositions with reverence and a faithful commitment to the source material, while also adding our unique artistic footprint and vision.  The musical telepathy I experienced playing with these great musicians made it very inspiring and easy to approach arrangements and adaptations of Brahms’ music for the quartet,” shares Brodbeck. 

The composer’s famed “Intermezzo in A Major, Op. 118 No. 2”, a staple of the classical piano performance repertoire, is presented by the quartet as a grooving Steely Dan-esque romp with Rosenwinkel’s guitar playing the foil to a through-composed bass and left-hand piano figure. Rossy plays with a deft restraint and keen awareness for the sonic moment, always propelling the music forward with a quiet intensity that lends clarity and motion to the dense and involved harmonies of Brodbeck’s piano. Rosenwinkel delivers an ecstatic and tuneful solo that showcases his complete mastery of the modern jazz language, playing with a light and singing tone that transcends the didactic elements and challenges of Brahms’ intricate piano short. “Wiegenlied”, Brahms’ timeless German lullaby, is herein rendered as a moody Bill Evans-style ballad replete with lush, impressionistic chord voicings and inventive reharmonizations that pine with emotional depth and poignancy. The folkloric elements of Brahms’ compositional voice are never far away in any of the ensemble’s extemporisations, despite the technical rigor of the music and the serpentine, asymmetrical forms which defy the typical idiomatic jazz approach. The most ambitious contemporary interpretation of The Brahms Project is undoubtedly the “Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 Mvt 3 Allegro Giocoso”. The joyous, major key themes of the third movement are juxtaposed against an island calypso groove, and perfectly placed subtle and not-so-subtle changes to the harmonies interspersed with involved figuration in the rhythm section. The quartet clearly invokes the spirit of a full orchestra with their telepathic interplay and flawless instrumental capabilities.

Following the success of The Chopin Project (2022) and its acclaimed international tour, The Brahms Project marks the next evolution for this extraordinary quartet. Few musicians possess the rare ability to bridge the worlds of jazz and classical music while maintaining the integrity of both traditions. Rosenwinkel, Brodbeck, Traxel, and Rossy rise to the challenge with a level of artistry and sensitivity that transcends genre. The Brahms Project is not simply “jazz meets classical” or “classical meets jazz”—it exists beyond categorization, as a profound exploration of the timeless and universal nature of Brahms’ music. As Brodbeck aptly summarizes: “If we see art as the image or the sublimation of our soul, then Brahms has reached the greatest depths and the most epochal heights.”