Renee Rosnes, Crossing Paths Review

The Rhythms of Connection: Crossing Paths with Renee Rosnes

By Sylvannia Garutch

In Crossing Paths, pianist-composer Renee Rosnes crafts a tribute to Brazilian music that is imaginative and performed by an outstanding ensemble. Released via Smoke Sessions Records, this December 2024 release sees Rosnes assembling a world-class ensemble, including Chris Potter, Steve Davis, John Patitucci, Chico Pinheiro, and Maucha Adnet. The program of nine tracks offers a lyrical, rhythm-rich homage to Brazilian masters like Edu Lobo, Joyce Moreno, Caetano Veloso, and Antonio Carlos Jobim.

For Rosnes, a musician renowned for her harmonic genius and compositional clarity, Crossing Paths represents a stylistic exploration of Brazilian rhythms and melodic forms with jazz’s voice-leading logic; the result is an album rooted in creativity.

“Frevo” sets the tone with kinetic brilliance. Gismonti’s carnival-rooted form comes alive through Shelley Brown’s buoyant flute, Pinheiro’s incisive guitar lines, and Rosnes’ stunning piano colors. The ensemble navigates the tutti and counterpoint with exceptional clarity. Rosnes’ arrangement balances intricacy with joy, weaving through written forms and vibrant improvisations. The ensemble reflects the liveliness of the music in their invention expression in the written and improvised parts.

“Casa Forte” has a building arrangement and balanced ensemble colors. Edu Lobo’s vocals infuse the track with warmth, while the rhythm section locks into a groove as the horn plays intricate and uplifting figures. The middle section reveals Rosnes’ arranger’s mind, moving to a samba feel functioning as a chorus-like lift that launches the song’s energy. The interlude has excellent writing before Chris Potter’s fiery soprano solo. Potter dances over the samba with fluent phrasing and rhythmic finesse. Rosnes follows with a solo equally impressive in touch and logic. Steve Davis’s trombone statement adds a burnished lyricism, making this track a showcase of individual brilliance and ensemble cohesion.

“Caminhos Cruzados” brings the thematic and titular centerpiece, unfolding with relaxed bossa intimacy. The arco bass, voice, and piano enter in rubato, setting a reflective tone. Rosnes’ accompaniment is harmonically subtle and rhythmically free. Maucha Adnet, a seasoned interpreter of Jobim, delivers the melody with exquisite inflection and graceful ornamentation. When the rhythm locks into a relaxed bossa nova sway, the emotional weight of the piece becomes clear: this is reimagining shaped by a deep understanding of the jazz and Brazilian musical forms. It’s a sublime addition to the album’s narrative arc.

Throughout Crossing Paths, Rosnes proves herself a masterful arranger. She understands the architecture of Brazilian music with its rhythmic layering, harmonic elegance, and melodic subtlety and reinterprets it through her jazz vocabulary without diluting its soul. The ensemble is responsive and luminous; John Patitucci’s bass lines are supple and articulate, while percussionist Rogério Boccato gives the tracks a shimmering, textural finesse.

Rosnes cleverly adapts Brazilian songs for a jazz audience, inviting them into a dialogue of beautiful melodies and fertile structures for improvisational expressions. This is especially evident in “Pra Dizer Adeus” and “Essa Mulher,” where the vocalist works with Rosnes’ sensitive harmonic reframing. The electric piano groove on “Amor Até O Fim” brings modern edges to Gilberto Gil’s classic, showing Rosnes’ willingness to stretch stylistically while staying emotionally anchored.

Crossing Paths is a jazz celebration of Brazil; it is a thoughtful and mature work that reflects Renee Rosnes’ commitment to the dialogue between cultures, genres, and generations. It builds on the permeability of jazz, capable of absorbing and elevating the nuances of global traditions without erasure. Rosnes and her collaborators offer a project of balance: between composition and improvisation, tradition and innovation, intimacy and exuberance. Crossing Paths is an album that rewards close listening, celebrates stylistic fluency, and expands the modern jazz canon with grace and imagination from Brazilian composers.