This rising jazz guitar star writes unlikely music. Equally mysterious, eerie, contemplative, serene, buoyant, and forlorn, Kurt Rosenwinkel's music follows no discernible fashion. Though he's influenced by Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell, Rosenwinkel's second Verve release (the follow-up to 2000's Enemies of Energy) more aptly recalls the early ECM recordings of guitarist John Abercrombie and drummer Jack DeJohnette's Special Edition band. Steeped in unusual tunings, zigzagging melodies, and a highly sensitive and loosely supercharged band, The Next Step works, especially for those patient enough to dig through its dense fabric. An equal number of post-bop workouts and haunting ballads occupy the CD, but even when the musicians (saxophonist Mark Turner, drummer Jeff Ballard, bassist Ben Street) are in full wail, a sense of fragile contemplation marks the music.

The intricate "Zhivago" and "A Shifting Design" show Rosenwinkel's unique guitar and compositional personality--his fingers and his mind seem as one, almost as if he doesn't really need a band to consummate his music. And when he sings (wordlessly) along with his probing guitar designs, he rides high over the band while seeming deep in his own head. The ballads--"Paths of the Heart," "Use of Light," and the beginning of "A Shifting Design"--perfectly capture some sci-fi deep space silence, where abandoned crafts drift in the darkness of a black vacuum. But Rosenwinkel also bumps and boogies like mad on "Filters," dedicated to Wes Montgomery, which features dynamite Turner-Rosenwinkel interplay and a gripping, hot-as-coals melody. For the title track, Rosenwinkel is on piano, and he sounds for all the world like a Chick Corea composition before it blasts off into a hardy, free-blues shuffle. Quixotic, cerebral, and a bit magical, The Next Step plots the unusual path of this freethinking guitarist. --Ken Micallef