Kinds of Love is borne out of a year of reflection when we focused on the things that are most important to us, family, friends, close relationships and for most of us, music. Pianist, composer, and bandleader Renee Rosnes composed nine tunes and brought in some of her closest collaborators to render these celebratory and meditative pieces. They are saxophonist Chris Potter, bassist Christian McBride, drummer Carl Allen and percussionist Rogerio Baccato. For many of these players the recording was the first time back in the studio after the pandemic hiatus. This is yet another all-star lineup for Rosnes, who also serves as musical director for the group Artemis, though for this project, she composed these nine pieces with the above players in mind.
Rosnes reunites with Potter and McBride who were aboard for her 1997 Blue Note release As We Are Now and marks her fifth recording with Potter, who played with her last year during virtual performances aired from The Village Vanguard. Rosnes has often played with Allen, so the only true new musician for her is Boccato, whom she met while playing with Jimmy Greene. Fellow pianist and composer Billy Childs writes insightful liner notes.
The album kicks off with “Silk,” a joyous, energetic groove laid down by McBride, Allen and Boccato before exploding into a frenzied busy NYC street type vibe captured by the swinging solos of Potter and Rosnes, each of whom holding nothing back. The tune is dedicated to the great composer and pianist Donald Brown. Immediately she turns to a contemplative mode in the title track, meant to convey empathy and compassion. It begins as a piano trio, with Rosnes playing beautifully in deep intimate conversation with the restrained McBride and Allen before Potter enters on soprano in the second half, adding both lyricism and drama to the piece which begins to ebb and flow with his presence. The emphatic four bass notes at the end beneath Potter’s soaring lines give it an especially declarative, serious tone.
Again, we have contrast as “In Time Like Air,” led by Potter’s flute conjures a nature scene akin to a teeming forest or bird sanctuary. The tune is apparently based on an unseen bird in Rosnes’ yard who kept singing a song for weeks, thus the repetitive nature of the melody. The tightly interwoven interaction between Potter and Rosnes is stunning, especially from the middle of the piece to the close. “The Golden Triangle” is for the original name of The Village Vanguard and features hard-swinging from Potter on tenor and stellar solos from Rosnes and McBride, before reprising the original theme as they began with.
The tempo recedes into a lovely, classical influenced piano solo from Rosnes in “Evermore,” where McBride later impresses with his bowed bass solo and Potter blows a deep, soulful tenor while Allen’s subtle jabs and caressing brushes add just the right texture. “Passing Jupiter” may seem a bit out of context as it is about space travel, beginning innocently and setting up the drama that Potter accentuates with the darker tones of his bass clarinet before McBride’s plucking bass paints the picture of passing satellites, crashing meteors, and other elements encountered on the journey. Potter’s soprano and Rosnes’ solos also build majestically on this motif of flight.
“Life Does Not Wait” is a sentiment we can all relate to, Rosnes’ way of indicating life’s precious moments, which are often too fleeting. We have a complex, angular rhythm pattern established by Boccato and Allen, that first finds Potter’s tenor and then Rosnes’ elegant, animated piano deftly navigating through the intricate web, punctuated mid-piece by a Boccato excursion. “Swoop is a straight-ahead post-bop tune, this time with intricacies laying in the melody and harmonic patterns, setting up some fervent banter between Potter, Rosnes, McBride, and Allen, each of whom solo masterfully. Finally, “Blessings in a Year of Exile” has Rosnes and the band finding some peace in a most unrestful year but touches of fear creep in with some solemnity in Potter’s soprano solo and near the end with dissonant left hand piano chords, as if to say, we’re not quite done yet.
Rosnes is in peak form compositionally and at the piano with a group of skilled musicians, she is eminently comfortable with. Naturally, the project succeeds on many levels and will likely appear on many year-end “Best Jazz” lists.
