RoundAgain (Nonesuch)
Redman Mehldau McBride Blade
Released July 2020
DownBeat Four-and-a-Half-Star Review
Grammy Nominee for Best Jazz Instrumental Album 2021
The Guardian 10 Best Jazz Albums of 2020
AllMusic Favorite Jazz Albums 2020
JazzTimes Top 20 New Jazz Releases of 2020
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kXHzSSJVtKBOwVxk3_V-z3iMtct-PxojI
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/6glNa1tv5xDIevYwSvxNkm?si=GllzkuPLQSeNQvpFM5s7XQ
About:
The members of the original Joshua Redman Quartet—Redman (saxophone), Brad Mehldau (piano), Christian McBride (bass), and Brian Blade (drums)—reunite with today’s Nonesuch release of RoundAgain, the group’s first recording since 1994’s MoodSwing. The album features seven newly composed songs: three from Redman, two from Mehldau, and one each from McBride and Blade. “A flawless effort,” exclaims NPR. “Each one of them is at the very top of his game now.”
Redman says of his first group as a bandleader, which was together for approximately a year and a half: “I realized almost immediately that this band wouldn’t stay together for very long. They were without a doubt, for our generation, among the most accomplished and innovative on their respective instruments. They were already all in such high demand—everyone wanted to play with them! And they all had such strong and charismatic musical personalities—destined to start soon pursuing their own independent visions. I knew better than anyone else just how incredibly lucky I was to have even that short time with them.”
In the intervening decades, each has played with one or more of the others on various occasions, but all four had never properly reunited. “I knew it would happen, but I didn’t know when,” Redman admits. “We were all so busy, and we needed the space, both in our schedules and in our creative development.”
“We would have done it ten years ago if it were up to me,” Mehldau insists. “Josh, Christian, and Brian are all my heroes. It’s like playing with The Avengers.”
Blade adds, “This band is like a turntable where the stylus was lifted but the turntable is still spinning. We just had to drop the needle, and there we were with all of the information we had gathered. It has gotten deeper because of life itself, and because Joshua, Brad, and Christian plumb the depths every day.” “These guys have grown exponentially,” McBride insists. “They are super-monsters now, and playing with them gave me a hard look at myself. And when you’re intimate creating art, even if you don’t play together for twenty years, you only need two bars to realize what the feeling is about, because the feeling never leaves.”
Track Listing:
1. Undertow (Joshua Redman) 07:22
2. Moe Honk (Brad Mehldau) 07:11
(Joshua Redman, Grammy Nominee for Best Improvised Jazz Solo 2021)
3. Silly Little Love Song (Joshua Redman) 07:01
4. Right Back Round Again (Joshua Redman) 06:00
5. Floppy Diss (Christian McBride) 05:22
6. Father (Brad Mehldau) 06:37
7. Your Part to Play (Brian Blade) 05:04
Personnel:
Joshua Redman: soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone
Brad Mehldau: piano
Christian McBride: bass
Brian Blade: drums
Recorded September 10-12, 2019 at Sear Sound Studio C, New York, NY
Produced by Joshua Redman
Associate Producer and Engineer: James Farber
Assistant Engineer: Owen Mulholland
Additional Engineering: Brian Montgomery
Mixed by James Farber
Mastered by Greg Calbi
Design by John Gall
Photographs by Michael Wilson
Review:
Imagine your neighbor owns an exotic car. It seldom leaves the garage, but when it does roll out of the driveway, there’s no missing its great lines, its refined exhaust note and the way it accelerates away with coiled power to spare. That’s the mystique and magnetism of this all-star quartet, which makes its first recorded appearance here since 1994, when it came together under the leadership of saxophonist Joshua Redman. While Redman contributed the most compositions to RoundAgain—three of the seven— there’s a remarkable equanimity on display, making it seem like each piece was written with the others in mind. While Brad Mehldau’s circular “Moe Honk” provides him with a vehicle for a dizzying piano solo, it’s also an ideal showcase for Redman’s effervescent virtuosity on tenor as he plays over and around the hard-charging rhythm section. Drummer Brian Blade’s “Your Part To Play,” which closes the album on a meditative note, allows each musician to develop the theme’s rising intensity in his own way without disturbing the surface unity. On song after song, the musicians pass ideas seamlessly, anticipate and respond engagingly, and maintain an infectious energy that makes the listener feel like there’s nothing beyond their abilities. They play as one, although Blade—who, on other recordings, often distinguishes himself with his barely contained enthusiasm—stands apart with endlessly creative cymbal work. Like the playing itself, the sound is so well balanced that every part of his kit carries the same weight. No recording is truly effortless, but this one churns forward with such precision and grace that it sounds like it is.
James Hale (DownBeat)
