Kurt Rosenwinkel & Jean-Paul Brodbeck, The Brahms Project Review

Brahms Reimagined: A Jazz Quartet in Motion

By Nolan DeBuke

In The Brahms Project, guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel and pianist-arranger Jean-Paul Brodbeck return to the fertile ground of classical reimagination, following their acclaimed 2022 project, The Chopin Project. This time, they turn their gaze to Johannes Brahms, a towering Romantic composer whose harmonically fertile and rhythmically daring works prove particularly ripe for jazz translation. Alongside bassist Lukas Traxel and drummer Jorge Rossy, the quartet offers a deeply musical jazz perspective on Brahms’ music.

The ensemble is about balance. Rosenwinkel’s fluid guitar phrasing and nuanced chordal architecture blend with Brodbeck’s rich harmonic landscapes and meticulous re-arrangements. Traxel anchors the group with a supple yet authoritative low end, while Rossy’s drumming combines propulsion with inventive coloration. The result is a unified quartet voice that is responsive, organic, and continuously evolving.

Opening the album with flair and finesse “Hungarian Dance No. 1.” This track reimagines Brahms’ folkloric vigor through a modern jazz swing lens. The melody, presented in warm tandem by guitar and piano, dances atop a subtly syncopated foundation. Rosenwinkel underscores key melodic gestures with elegant voicings, adding forward motion and harmonic lift. His improvisation builds organically, rising in register with cascading eighth and sixteenth-note lines that mirror the ensemble’s intensifying energy. As the arrangement modulates through a sequence of coloristic changes, Rosenwinkel delivers long, fluid phrases that adapt to shifting modes with grace, sustaining momentum and deepening the emotional arc.

“Intermezzo, Op. 117, No. 2” pivots effortlessly between rhythmic characters. Opening with a contemporary straight-eighth groove that blends rock and funk influences, before softening into a swing-ballad interlude. The ensemble handles the transitions with a refined touch, capturing the intensity and repose inherent in Brahms’ writing. Rosenwinkel’s solo rides atop a modern sixteenth-note pulse, his phrasing drawing on the harmonic extensions of Brodbeck’s re-harmonized landscape. The solo blossoms melodically, its clarity and forward momentum yielding a powerful emotional resonance. The resonance is jazz and one that reflects Brahms’ original lyricism, even as it speaks through a new idiom.

“Rhapsody, Op. 79, No. 1” reveals Brodbeck’s arrangement finesse and its structural brilliance. Using Brahms’ harmonic outlines as a scaffold, he introduces re-harmonized progressions and contrapuntal textures that sound utterly idiomatic to jazz. This integration of idioms ensures the improvisational sections don’t break from the piece’s flow. Instead, they extend it. As Rosenwinkel and Brodbeck solo, they sustain the same harmonic colors and emotional tone introduced in the opening statements, creating a cohesive arc. The solo voices don’t contrast with Brahms; they commune with him, casting fresh light on his enduring harmonic genius.

“Symphony No. 3 – III. Poco allegretto” is interesting in combining the movement’s famed lyricism with a breezy propulsion of a calypso-inflected groove. The rhythmic setting, though contemporary, feels surprisingly natural. The melody works in this setting thanks to Brahms’ inherently songful theme. The groove doesn’t overshadow; it uplifts. Rosenwinkel’s articulation is nimble, combining staccato expressive and legato flowing, interlocks imaginatively with Rossy and Traxel’s rhythmic framework. His solo is a lesson in balance: rhythmically inventive, yet always emotionally grounded, extending the melodic logic of the source while threading it through an entirely new rhythmic texture.

Among the album’s additional highlights, “Wiegenlied” casts the iconic lullaby in new jazz coloring, building hues and evoking the balladic depth and lyricism in Brahm’s composition. Rather than deconstructing the piece, the quartet meditates on its harmonic essence, allowing the gentle sway of the arrangement to speak with its structural theme. “Symphony No. 4 – III. Allegro giocoso” offers a striking transformation of a symphonic scherzo into a contemporary jazz vignette that serves as an audacious and playful closer. Meanwhile, “Ballade, Op. 10, No. 4” and “Intermezzo, Op. 116, No. 6” deepen the album’s expressive breadth, contributing richly to its narrative range and harmonic sophistication, and further demonstrating the ensemble’s ability to fuse classical themes with jazz’s fluidity in rhythm.

Throughout the album, the ensemble demonstrates how jazz improvisation can serve as a form of interpretive commentary. Rather than using Brahms as a jumping-off point, they treat his compositions as living forms that are used as motifs of extension, mutation, and contemporary recontextualization. Each improvisation is informed by the harmonic DNA of the original Brahm’s theme, resulting in solos that feel like a dialogue with fresh tops.

The Brahms Project is a compelling model for jazz as it offers a case study in stylistic integrity and how to innovate without distortion, to translate without flattening nuance. For listeners of both idioms, it reveals how deeply jazz and classical share common ground: voice-leading, motivic development, rhythmic complexity, and emotional colors through harmonic movements.

The Brahms Project bridges centuries and traditions, offering listeners a vision of music unbound by genre or era. It’s a project of intellect and heart, rigor and freedom, everything great jazz, and great music, aspires to be.