Kurt Rosenwinkel; Allan Holdsworth; Eric Clapton
Crossroads Guitar Festival
Madison Square Garden
New York, NY
2013-04-12

Track 1- Heavenly Bodies-Kurt Rosenwinkel Quintet *
Track 2- Gamma Band- Allan Holdsworth with Kurt Rosenwinkel Quintet *
Track 3- If I Should Lose You- Eric Clapton with Kurt Rosenwinkel Quintet *
Track 4- Way Down That Lonesome Road- Eric Clapton with Kurt Rosenwinkel Quintet *
Track 5- High Time We Went- 2012-04-13 Final Jam- Kurt Rosenwinkel Solo at about 3:50 **

Info from original TTD posting of entire 2 nights of Festival:

"Source: Aud
Lineage:
CA-14 omni's -> CA9100 -> 6" GAKables Mini starquad cable -> Sony PCMM10 (Line In, 24/96)
Transfer: Sandisk Mobile Ultra 16GB Class 4 micro SDHC -> HDD
Audio software: iZotope RX 2 Advanced (8 dB gain, 64 Bit SRC, MBIT+ dither) -> wav's (16/44) -> CDWAV -> TLH -> Flac (level 8, SBE's aligned)
Scrubbed away a couple loud whistles and woo-hoo's with iZotope's spectral repair.
Recorded and transferred by Drgiggles1
* Recorded from section 221 row 8 end aile seat.
** Recorded from section 225 row 22"

Kurt Rosenwinkel Quintet-

Kurt Rosenwinkel- guitar, voice
Aaron Parks- piano
Pete Rende-organ
Reuben Rogers-bass
Obed Calvaire- drums

Allan Holdsworth-guitar on track 2
Eric Clapton-guitar and vocals on tracks 3,4

**Cast of 20+ on High Time, including Clapton, Albert Lee, Doyle Bramhall, Cesar Rojas, Gary Clark Jr., Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Taj Mahal, Robbie Robertson, a.o.

First of all, thanks to the original recorder and poster on TTD. The entire festival is still up there, so go get it if you want to hear the rest. I extracted the tracks involving Kurt Rosenwinkel, and here they are.
The story goes that Eric Clapton and Russ Titelman went to see Kurt at the Village Vanguard in 2011. EC had heard Kurt on a Brian Blade disc and wanted to see and hear him live. That apparently led to an invitation to appear at the 2013 Crossroads Fest alongside primarily rock, blues, and blues-rock guitarists, each of whom would have about 20-25 minutes of average showcase time. The heavies included Clapton, Jeff Beck, The Allman Bros., Buddy Guy, etc. The only "jazzers" on the bill were Kurt, AH (who only appeared on this song with Kurt), and Earl Klugh. Scofield was reputed to be on the bill, but didn't seem to actually do the gig.
Given the dimensions of Madison Square Garden, this recording is quite listenable. I did nothing to the original files from TTD. I was inspired to put this up here for the sake of any Kurt fans who might have wanted an audio document of this to go with the clips on youtube. Also hoped that some not aware of Kurt might be drawn in by Holdsworth and Clapton's names and be inspired to check him out more seriously.
Final note, is that I suspended chronologly by tacking on the final night's jam on Joe Cocker's High Time We Went for the crazy juxtaposition of Kurt's 1 minute solo at about 3:50 into an otherwise pentatonic heavy 2 chord blues-rock vamp. He's playing a Strat on this tune that was apparently gifted to him by EC (Kurt played his D'Anglelico on the other tracks from the previous night).
Please support all artists creating high quality improvised music by purchasing their commercially available releases. Kurt put out the excellent Star of Jupiter recently. That's a great place to start with his music, if you want to dive in. Heavenly Bodies and Gamma Band are on that.