Jazz Articles about Joshua Redman

Highway Rider

by John Kelman
March 9, 2010

For a pianist who not only demonstrated remarkable promise, but actually began delivering on it at a very early stage in his career with what would ultimately become his five-part Art of the Trio (Warner Bros.) series, Brad Mehldau's side projects have--with the exception of the solo Live in Tokyo (Nonesuch, 2004)--met with mixed reactions. Perhaps it's because of his emergence as one of modern jazz's most distinctive and popular interpreters of both contemporary song and standard material in a ...

Joshua Redman: Compass

by Jeff Stockton
October 6, 2009

No jazz musician with Joshua Redman's pedigree, chops and talent wants to be tagged as “cautious" or “cerebral," but that was Redman's reputation, perhaps right up until Back East was released in 2007. That CD, a return to straight-ahead acoustic playing after a brief digression, found the saxophonist fronting a few different rhythm sections (and standing next to a couple of guests) and generated natural comparisons to Sonny Rollins' classic Way Out West. Compass simultaneously extends the ...

The Joshua Redman Trio

by AAJ Staff
September 28, 2009

Joshua Redman TrioIndianpolis Jazz FestivalIndianapolis, IndianaSeptember 19, 2009

By the inner compass one finds one's direction, and Joshua Redman didn't fail to find his on the first night of the Indianapolis Jazz Festival at Clowes Memorial Hall. With Gregory Hutchinson on drums and Matt Penman on bass, they played a few classic covers, but also many songs from his new double-trio album, Compass (Nonesuch, 2008), another exquisite journey from the 40-year-old saxophonist.Progeny of great musicians ...

Joshua Redman: Compass

by Doug Collette
March 2, 2009

Joshua Redman has made some fine albums in the past, including Timeless Tales (For Changing Times) (Warner Bros., 1998), Passage of Time (Warner Bros., 2001) and Spirit of the Moment Live (Warner Bros., 1995), but he's never recorded one with such clarity of purpose as the self-produced Compass. In keeping with the dual meaning of the title word (alternately a verb to accomplish as well as the noun as a tool of direction) the saxophonist leads two different trios into ...

Joshua Redman: Compass

by Chris May
January 5, 2009

Like its predecessor Back East (Nonesuch, 2007), saxophonist Joshua Redman's Compass invites comparisons with Sonny Rollins' totemic acoustic trio outing Way Out West (Riverside, 1957), whose instrumentation it reflects and whose influence Redman has acknowledged.

Another Rollins album which springs to mind, though more for its title than its structure, is Saxophone Colossus (Riverside, 1956); for with Compass, Redman, like Rollins 53 years earlier, has produced the most singular album of his career so far. Redman's previous acoustic ...

Joshua Redman: Back East

by Russ Musto
March 6, 2008

Saxophonist Joshua Redman's Back East is a multi-tiered concept album that simultaneously fêtes a person--Sonny Rollins; a place--the East--and a thing--the number three, while documenting the leader's continuing development as a saxophonist, composer and arranger. The date celebrates Rollins' classic Way Out West (OJC, 1957) somewhat ironically with its title and several songs associated with the tenor titan, while also paying tribute to the hemisphere with a series of compositions that commemorate nonwestern locales. The music therein is performed by ...

Joshua Redman: Back East

by John Kelman
June 19, 2007

For Back East, his first all-acoustic album in six years, saxophonist Joshua Redman returns from the west coast to the Big Apple, collaborating with a group of largely New York-based musicians. But the album's title refers to more than geographic relocation. A series of songs--original and otherwise--reflect an interest in Eastern harmonies and rhythms, with a fresh look at two tunes from seminal influence Sonny Rollins' Way Out West (Contemporary/OJC, 1957) and a couple of standards are thrown in for ...