Joshua Redman Trio - Back East

Great Record

I have never purchased a Joshua Redman cd before. I've heard his playing and been an admirer for some time. Without going into a full blown dissertation on every song I can tell you this. The playing is stellar, the melodies are great. The interplay is wonderful, the duet with his dad is almost haunting. I reccomend this for anyone looking for a really great contemporary jazz record. August 14, 2007

Surprisingly good

Joshua Redman is hit or miss with me. I'm not really a fan of his elastic band stuff, so hearing him return to an acoustic format in a trio setting was a nice change for me. Each trio is unique and showcases each member in a different way - it's amazing how this stripped down format can stay interesting throughout the entire album. Recommended. July 12, 2007

Fair cd

Off the Mark & what I mean is wrong material. Doesnt show what his talents are. Id get George Benson, Bob James Nathan east, David Beniot, Peter white, Mark antione on your next cd & this would make a awesome Cd. June 25, 2007

How to navigate the perils of a saxophone trio

A saxophone trio album can be tricky, since the saxophonist has to pretty much carry the entire load. If the sax playing isn't utter genius (think of Ornette Coleman's "At The Golden Circle"), then you can get a CD that seems to go on for too long (think of Branford Marsalis's "Bloomington"). Joshua Redman does a few things to avoid that pitfall. The first thing is call in three guest saxophonists, Chris Cheek, Joe Lovano, and Dewey Redman, to appear on three different songs. The two-sax songs are sprinkled through the CD. Another way to avoid monotony is to have three different rhythm sections. All three sections are top-notch, and you get the sense they're playing to the song and the saxophone, not to out-do the other bassists and drummers. Larry Grenadier and Ali Jackson play on most of the songs. Lastly, the songs are kept relatively short, so it isn't too long before a new melody or tempo is introduced.

Joshua Redman starts off with an old warhorse, "Surrey With The Fringe On Top" and freshens it up a little by chopping up the rhythm. Most of the rest of the songs have an Asian reference in their title, and to a lesser extent in their music. I'm not sure how "I'm An Old Cowhand" and "Wagon Wheels" fit in with the theme, since they're western songs . At any rate, the standards are nicely played, and the new compositions are also good. It's simply a top-notch album, and is highly recommended. This will be one of the better CD's of 2007. The last song doesn't have Joshua on it, but has Dewey Redman playing for his granddaughter. It's interestingly free-jazzy, and perhaps a suitable capstone to Dewey's long and interesting career.
June 20, 2007

Always Open Ears For Josh - Always Time For Dewey

Nowhere is it written that expressing angst is in the sole dominion of the consternated pop/alt./rockers and their ilk. Joshua Redman makes that clear by bailing himself out of San Fran (temporarily), scooping up his little bambino, and coming "Back East" to bury his father. Josh has plenty of strong emotions to work out in front of us, and we should have no problem with that. This is healthy music-making. There's also the palpable sense that Redman was jonesing big-time to play again in a trio setting with Brian Blade, his musical alter-ego. Other drummers are on-board besides Blade, but it's not the first time, as some have suggested, that Brian and Josh have recorded in a trio. See Yaya3 for proof of that (with no bassist, but bass-end courtesy of B3-er Sam Yahel). This isn't even the first time that Josh has recorded with just the bare-bones sax-bass-drums thing going on (see isolated tracks on Joshua Redman, Wish, and Spirit Of The Moment: Live At The Village Vanguard). But an entire album of it? Yes, now we're talking "Back East" style. Before getting all caught up with this distinction, however, just watch those lines get blurred by some of these trios morphing into quartets with the addition of some very special guests.

It's impossible to write this review and not drop the name Sonny Rollins, since a full third of the tracks here are tunes that Newk explored within the very same trio constraints back in the late 50's, and you know that Josh loves his Newk. He doesn't try to sound like Rollins here - he just invokes Sonny's powerful visage. The name and the sound, both invoked and actually present, which "Back East" *is* suffused with is that of Joshua's late father, Dewey Redman. My first exposure to the music of Dewey Redman came in the mid 70's when he was part of Keith Jarrett's incendiary American combo that made recordings for Impulse!, but I have to confess that most of it went way over my head at the time. What really made me pay attention to Dewey was his significant contribution to Pat Metheny's ECM double-album 80/81, right there next to Jack DeJohnette, Charlie Haden (also a vet of that Jarrett unit), Metheny, and the late Michael Brecker. What a free-emotive ear-opening revelation Dewey was on those tunes! Next came my awareness of the outfit known as "Old And New Dreams" with Don Cherry, Ed Blackwell, and Haden again, which really convinced me that it was Miles Davis who was "all messed up inside" and not Ornette Coleman. And in the midst of all this great music came a Dewey Redman album for the ages - 1983's "The Struggle Continues" on ECM. Search hard in used vinyl shops for it - or even harder for a CD copy.

So what does any of this have to do with Joshua Redman's new self-produced title on Nonesuch? The answer is: everything. Josh has some of the biggest ears on this planet - don't go thinking for a minute that any of this stuff from the late 70's and 80's was lost on him, even if he tells you that he had to "come back" for some of it (he grew up apart from his dad with his mother in the Bay Area). Once Josh made the commitment to music over law school, *all* the great tenors who came before him contributed something to his jurisprudence of jazz degree. And with this latest offering, Redman (the younger) continues to show off his very sponge-like abilities even further. If there were just a few more tracks like the Josh original "Indonesia" (which isn't exactly gamelan, but sure ain't no 12-bar blues either) or the Coltrane gem "India" (performed in 4tet with father Dewey), or the Shorter jewel "Indian Song" (4tet with Joe Lovano, tune lifted from Wayne's o.o.p. 1965 album "Etcetera") this review would be attached to a 5-star rating. But 4 stars is still pretty darned good, and "Back East" is worth extra spins just to reflect on the incredible musical legacy left to us by Dewey Redman, who not so incidentally gets the last dance all to himself (in a trio) for the set closer. Salaam, Dewey. Great album, Josh. June 3, 2007

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