In a quest to prove themselves kings of the jungle, many of the young lions of jazz strut their technical prowess and are quick to let out a fierce roar. Not Redman. On his debut as a leader on this eponymous album, the 24-year-old tenor saxophonist eases into a relaxed groove during the opening tune, "Blues on Sunday," and reveals a jaunty self-confidence and depth of feeling beyond his years.
Backed by pianist Kevin Hays, bassist Christian McBride and drummer Gregory Hutchinson, Redman serves up an eclectic mix of originals and standards for this session. He shines most on his own material, particularly "Wish," a wistful blues with a loping bass line. Redman has a fat sound on tenor, reminiscent of the Texas blues honkers, but he also nimbly navigates the quirky changes on Thelonious Monk's "Trinkle Tinkle."
One minor complaint: The album would have benefited from judicious editing. James Brown's "I Got You (I Feel Good)" doesn't fit well in this program. And even though Redman brings a youthful freshness to "Body & Soul," he does himself a disservice by inviting premature comparison with the historic interpretation of the tune by the father of the tenor sax, Coleman Hawkins.
This miscalculation is surprising, considering Redman's demonstrated eagerness to learn from his elders. In great demand currently as a sideman, Redman is featured on two other new releases. He is put to the test by John Coltrane's former drummer, Elvin Jones, on Jones's fiercely swinging album Youngblood (Enja), and passes with honors. He is also featured on Choices (Enja), a new record from his father, free-jazz saxophonist Dewey Redman. Both Redmans have a warm, vocal style of playing and use their horns to share the kind of feelings fathers and sons often have difficulty expressing in words. (Warner Bros.)
Vera Gosdin
Wherever there-and-back is, country singer Gosdin knows the place. At 58, he has been through bypass surgery and more record labels than most people have shirts. He sang gospel in Alabama in the '50s and country-rock in California in the '60s. He has quit the music business at least once, seen marriages go sour on him twice, and if his careworn, husky voice shows every misstep and every mile, well, that only makes it better.
Gosdin can sing an up-tempo song just fine, but his stock-in-trade is sadness. Hurt pours from him like water from a backyard pump. Young Nashville singers could get a fine lesson in old-time country pathos from listening to this album's "What Are We Gonna Do About Me," a little boy's plaintive query to his Splitsville-headed parents, or the utterly bereft "Any Old Miracle."
The only country singer recording today who can set up your heart and knock it down with more ease is George Jones, and even the Ol' Possum is sounding suspiciously frisky these days. Stay blue, Vern, we need you that way. (Columbia)
>Joshua Redman
KEYS TO THE KINGDOM
AFTER GRADUATING SUMMA CUM laude from Harvard with a degree in social science in June 1991, Joshua Redman had a place waiting for him at Yale Law School but decided he would rather play jazz full-time. His dad, saxophonist Dewey Redman, told him he was doing the wrong thing. "He knows how hard the jazz life can be," Joshua says. "But he can't tell me what to do."
Raised in Berkeley by his mother, Renee Shedroff, a dancer and librarian, Joshua saw his father only on the rare occasions Dewey had a gig in the area. "I didn't feel abandoned because being the child of a single parent was the only life I knew," Joshua says. "Materially there was some hardship. We were on welfare most of my young life. But that had nothing to do with my father being there or not, because he struggled to survive just as we did." As a boy Joshua fell in love with the tenor saxophone by listening to John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon and his own father on records. "The sound of the tenor is so commanding yet at the same time compassionate," he says.
Today, Joshua occasionally plays sax alongside his father at clubs across the country. Dewey has been giving his son some advanced tutelage in the meaning of the blues. "My dad grew up in Fort Worth in the '30s and '40s under a kind of hardship I'll never experience but which is part of my heritage and psyche," Joshua says. "So when I play with him, I learn a lot about a hidden part of myself."
- Contributors:
- David Grogan,
- Tony Scherman.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
