
Joshua Redman Quartet
Released March 29, 2019
Grammy Nominee for Best Jazz Instrumental Album 2020
YouTube: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nwy4lyEBjdF-DEFJOrxZx7q8xbMmDDFbA
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/38R4DeasP4tqHhfiiShLVE?si=bQDeaXVlSA6qP9mTMG7qqg
About:
Nonesuch Records released the Joshua Redman Quartet’s Come What May on March 29, 2019. This is the first recording in almost two decades for this group of musicians: the recently Grammy–nominated saxophonist and his longtime friends and colleagues pianist Aaron Goldberg, bassist Reuben Rogers, and drummer Gregory Hutchinson. Previous releases were Beyond (2000) and Passage of Time (2001). The Quartet, which has toured internationally over the last several years, recorded seven Redman tunes for Come What May.
The Guardian has called Redman “one of the 21st century’s finest jazz improvisers,” and the Boston Globe said of the group’s recent Newport Jazz Festival performance, “There was tenor Joshua Redman with his quartet, showing how to build excitement and get the crowd screaming without pressing or compromising his art.”
Redman recently said of Goldberg, Rogers, and Hutchinson, in Denver’s Westword newspaper, “They’re some of my favorite musicians in the world. We’ve played so much over the years and have been together on the road so much, on and off the bandstand, there’s just that sort of camaraderie and friendship and genuine love for and understanding of each other that, for me, [is] the ideal situation for making music. When you have that level of trust and empathy, both musically and personally, it allows you to be truly relaxed and free; and those are really good pre-conditions for magic to potentially happen.
Joshua Redman’s first album on Nonesuch was the Grammy-nominated Momentum (2005). His other releases on the label include Back East, Compass, and Trios Live, all of which explore the trio format; MoodSwing (1994, re-issued); Walking Shadows (2013), his first recording to include an orchestral ensemble; The Bad Plus Joshua Redman (2015), a collaboration with the acclaimed trio; Nearness (2016), a duo album with longtime friend and collaborator Brad Mehldau; and the 2018 Grammy–nominated Still Dreaming—an album inspired by his father Dewey Redman’s 1976–1987 band, Old and New Dreams. Redman currently tours with his trio with Rogers and Hutchinson; his quartet; Still Dreaming, with Ron Miles, Scott Colley and Brian Blade; and occasionally with the collaborative group James Farm, with Aaron Parks, Matt Penman, and Eric Harland. James Farm has two releases on Nonesuch: their 2011 self-titled album and 2014’s City Folk.
Track Listing:
1. Circle of Life (Joshua Redman) 06:55
2. I’ll Go Mine (Joshua Redman) 07:14
3. Come What May (Joshua Redman) 06:46
4. How We Do (Joshua Redman) 03:33
5. DGAF (Joshua Redman) 04:48
6. Stagger Bear (Joshua Redman) 06:04
7. Vast (Joshua Redman) 07:48
Personnel:
Joshua Redman: tenor saxophone
Aaron Goldberg: piano
Reuben Rogers: bass
Gregory Hutchinson: drums
Recorded May 8-9, 2018, at Sear Sound, New York, NY
Produced by
Joshua Redman
Associate Producer and Engineer: James Farber
Assistant Engineer: Owen Mulholland
Additional Engineering: Brian Montgomery
Mastered by Greg Calbi
Design by John
Gall
Cover Photograph by David Fokos
Review:
Joshua Redman’s excellent new album marks a homecoming of sorts. The tenor saxophonist is joined by Aaron Goldberg on piano, Reuben Rogers on bass, and Gregory Hutchinson on drums—an immaculate rhythm section Redman last played with on his 2001 release, Passage of Time. The band first recorded together on Beyond, the year before. Nearly 20 years have gone by since then, though their rapport is none the worse for it. If anything, the quartet now sounds wiser and more self-assured.
Featured here are seven original compositions by Redman, a straight-ahead collection of runic melodies ranging in style from jam-like funk to medium swing to soulful balladry. Although Redman is the leader, he treats the group like a democratic institution, giving ample solo space to his bandmates, particularly Goldberg, whose dark, low-register vamps at the beginning of several songs create a mysterious mood. Rogers lays down a firm foundation with his resonant bass lines, while Hutchinson, a longtime collaborator who appeared on Redman’s self-titled debut album in 1993, keeps things in flux with his liquid ride cymbal and crackling snare hits.
But of course Redman—whose last album, Still Dreaming, released in 2018, was a tribute to his father, the late saxophonist Dewey Redman—is the main attraction. His saxophone sound, dry and yearning, is one of the few in modern jazz that is instantly identifiable. And it is a sound to savor, best heard here on the title track, a slow, somewhat mournful tune. If Redman seems wistful, perhaps that’s because the passage of time tends to have that effect on us all.
Matthew Kassel (JazzTimes)