On his buoyant 2018 album
Still Dreaming,
Joshua Redman evokes the spirit of his late father, saxophonist
Dewey Redman (who died in 2006), and the elder
Redman's adventurous work with longtime friend and bandleader
Ornette Coleman. Specifically, the younger
Redman draws inspiration from
Coleman's
Old and New Dreams band, which also featured his father along with cornetist
Don Cherry, drummer
Ed Blackwell, and bassist
Charlie Haden. An outgrowth of
Coleman's earlier '60s quartet,
Old and New Dreams (which was active from 1976 to 1987) was a boundary-pushing ensemble rife with bluesy lyricism, atonal harmonics, and frenetic swing. This was heady free jazz, but with an earthy '70s soulfulness. Much the same could be said of
Redman's group here, as each of the players in his quartet, including trumpeter
Ron Miles, bassist
Scott Colley, and drummer
Brian Blade, has a similarly kinetic, almost preternatural sense for group interplay. Here, they play a mix of newly penned originals plus two covers, inspired by
Coleman's band but in their own thoughtfully mutative style. As modern-day torchbearers of
Coleman's forward-thinking jazz sound,
Redman and his bandmates are fairly well matched. Cornetist
Miles has long evinced the probing qualities of
Cherry's "freebop" style. Similarly,
Blade has a driving, organic rhythmic sense that recalls
Blackwell, and
Colley literally studied with
Haden. For
Redman's part, the lithe, aqueous quality of his playing feels right at home within the slippery quartet. Tracks like the jaunty bop-inflected "New Year" and the nervy klezmer-funk of "Unanimity" feel like lost bonus tracks from
This Is Our Music-era
Coleman. Similarly, cuts like the languid "Haze and Aspirations," with its extended bass intro, and the spare, aptly titled "Blues for Charlie," with its call-and-response group improv, bring to mind the rootsy
Old and New Dreams sound of the late '70s. Elsewhere,
Redman applies a classical artist's sense for a reverent interpretation of
Haden's "Playing" and
Coleman's "Comme Il Faut," as he and his band vacillate between long dissonant lines and aggressive, molecular sparring. ~ Matt Collar
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