Joshua Redman - Back East
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CD Details
Artist: Joshua RedmanEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
CD Release Date: 2007-04-24
Music Label: Nonesuch
Soundtracks:
- The Surrey With The Fridge On Top
- East Of The Sun (And West Of The Moon)
- Zarafah
- Indian Song
- I'm An Old Cowhand
- Wagon Wheels
- Back East
- Mantra No.5
- Indonesia
- India
- GJ
Music reviews of Back East
Music Review: Always Open Ears For Josh - Always Time For Dewey
Rating: 4 Stars
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.
Description of Back East
Joshua Redman mixes originals with standards in tribute of the great sax players before him, on his new album Back East. But Redman doesn't just pay homage with these tunes, he makes them his own, adding a different sort of "eastern" feel to both the covers and his original compositions. With many special guest performers, including his own father, Redman has created a eloquent gift for the music world.Sonny Rollins's 1957 release Way Out West established the pianoless bass-sax-drum configuration. The Berkeley-raised tenor/soprano saxophonist Joshua Redman's geographically reversed tribute was recorded in New York, where his career began. It features three sets of trios, with drummers Brian Blade, Eric Harland, and Ali Jackson and bassists Rueben Rogers, Christian McBride, and Larry Grenadier. Redman's sure-headed, serpentine, and sensual saxlines upgrade the two WOW tracks "I'm an Old Cowhand" and "Wagon Wheels" with Afro-Asian rhythmic motifs. Joe Lovano, Chris Cheek, and the leader's late father Dewey Redman lend their sax sounds to selections by Redman's horn influences: "Indian Song" by Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane's "India," and the Stan Getz-associated ballad "East of the Sun (and West of the Moon)." Redman's compositions--"Mantra #5," the tantric-tempoed "Indonesia," the title track, and "GJ," a touching dedication from Joshua Redman's dad to his grandson--complete the thrilling project from this future saxophone colossus. --Eugene Holley, Jr.
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