The Bad Plus (Nonesuch)
The Bad Plus Joshua Redman
Released May 26, 2015
The Guardian Highest Rated Jazz Albums of All Time
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kywt_8x5hPLnh82pJPSP5h9uzLKTUeheA
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/2tzJagRYnAeB9j65wJx2j3?si=VhShwCSATW-in0895QPXFA
About:
In 2011, The Bad Plus invited saxophonist Joshua Redman to join them for a week of enthusiastically received performances at the Blue Note in New York City. They then played a handful of dates before heading into the studio in 2014 to record their debut album, The Bad Plus Joshua Redman, which Nonesuch releases on May 26, 2015 (June 8 outside of North America). Seven of the nine tracks on The Bad Plus Joshua Redman are new compositions by the quartet members who include saxophonist Joshua Redman and The Bad Plus bassist Reid Anderson, pianist Ethan Iverson, and drummer David King. The other two songs on the album, “Dirty Blonde” and “Silence Is the Question,” are new arrangements of Bad Plus favorites.
Of a recent show in Great Barrington, MA, Albany’s Metroland said, “The newly christened Bad Plus Joshua Redman took the stage … and proceeded to raise the roof. In a word, the music the quartet produces is sublime. More than that, it’s as though Redman is the long-lost fourth member of the group, just waiting to be snapped snugly into place.”
The Bad Plus has almost exclusively performed as a trio for its nearly 20-year existence. Guests occasionally join the band in concert, but only one of their previous 10 albums has included a fourth member. Redman, however, has long enjoyed mixing his musical partners. He has collaborated with Brian Blade, Christian McBride, Brad Mehldau, and Pat Metheny, as well as with the SFJAZZ Collective and his bandmates in James Farm.
“On the live gigs, Josh plays magnificent, long tenor solos which are very much in the jazz tradition,” said Iverson. “That’s obviously not the focus when we play as The Bad Plus. It’s fun to for us to enjoy that extended blowing territory, especially with someone as great as Josh. On the album, however, there is still a focus on composition.”
Anderson told Minneapolis’ Star Tribune: “Josh is a professional of the highest order. He came in knowing our music to the point of memorizing it, with great, positive energy.” Redman adds, “Playing with The Bad Plus has allowed me to explore a part of my playing, and my musical heritage, that I’ve never before accessed in quite the same way with any other group. The adventure with The Bad Plus pushes me toward the fringes and draws me into the core.”
Track Listing:
1. As This Moment Slips Away (Reid Anderson) 6:52
2. Beauty Has It Hard (David King) 7:00
3. County Seat (Ethan Iverson) 3:03
4. The Mending (Joshua Redman) 4:10
5. Dirty Blonde (Reid Anderson) 5:32
6. Faith Through Error (Ethan Iverson) 3:18
7. Lack the Faith But Not the Wine (Reid Anderson) 7:13
8. Friend or Foe (Joshua Redman) 8:36
(Joshua Redman Grammy Nominee for Best Improvised Jazz Solo 2016)
9. Silence is the Question (Reid Anderson) 13:30
Personnel:
Reid Anderson: bass
Ethan Iverson: piano
David King: drums
Joshua Redman: tenor saxophone
Recorded and Mixed by Pete Rende at Brooklyn Recording
Produced by The Bad Plus Joshua Redman
Mastered by Huntley Miller
Production Coordination by Courtney Hawkes & Chris Hinderaker Photographs by David Jacobs
Artwork and Design by Greg Meyers and David King
Review:
Can a star jazz improviser used to unimpeded spaces and a composers’ trio who have been wriggling in and out of confined ones for 15 years make music together? That’s the challenge that saxophonist Joshua Redman and The Bad Plus set each other at New York’s Blue Note club in 2011, and with this studio album of originals, and the answer was a big affirmative. Redman plays with imagination and empathy – in delicately hooty upper tones and darker ruminations over the piano hook and periodically sly rhythm lurch of bassist Reid Anderson’s As This Moment Slips Away, or negotiating Anderson’s anthemic standout song, Dirty Blonde. But Redman’s swing on his own Friend or Foe, his free-jazz blasting on pianist Ethan Iverson’s strutting Country Seat, and his ballad dialogue with Iverson on Anderson’s Lack the Faith But Not the Wine show how brightly his jazz flame burns. It’s a must for Joshua Redman and Bad Plus fans alike.
John Fordham (The Guardian)
