Joshua Redman is the most acclaimed and charismatic jazz artist to have emerged in the decade of the 1990s. Born in Berkeley, California, he is the son of legendary saxophonist Dewey Redman and dancer Renee Shedroff and an alumnus of the jazz studies program at Berkeley High School. After graduating from Harvard College, Redman was accepted by Yale Law School in 1991, but postponed his entrance for one year to satisfy a growing desire to pursue music. Four months later, Redman’s decision was confirmed when he was named the winner of the Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Competition by a panel of judges comprised of Jimmy Heath, Branford Marsalis, Jackie McLean, Frank Wess and the late Benny Carter.

Now fully committed to a career in the arts, Redman was quickly signed by Warner Bros. Records and issued his first, self-titled album in 1993, where he was featured on tenor saxophone. That same year saw the release of Wish, where Redman was joined by an all-star supporting cast of Pat Metheny, Charlie Haden and the late Billy Higgins. His next recording, MoodSwing, introduced his first permanent band, which included three other young artists who have gone on to make their mark in the jazz world: pianist Brad Mehldau, bassist Christian McBride and drummer Brian Blade. Over a series of celebrated recordings including Spirit of the Moment/Live at the Village Vanguard, Freedom in the Groove and Timeless Tales (for Changing Times), Redman established himself as one of the music’s most consistent and successful bandleaders, and added soprano and alto saxophones to his instrumental arsenal. His second acclaimed quartet, featuring pianist Aaron Goldberg, bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Gregory Hutchinson, made its debut on Redman’s 2000 album Beyond, and is also featured performing the saxophonist’s first extended composition on the 2001 disc Passage of Time. A year later, Redman formed a new trio with keyboard player Sam Yahel and drummer Brian Blade that is heard on Redman’s Elastic, as well as under the collective name Yaya3.

Joshua Redman's Back East is the tenor saxophonist and composer's second Nonesuch release and his first recording in an acoustic trio setting. A marked contrast to Redman's plugged-in, groove-based sessions with the Elastic Band or his collaborations with the eight-piece SFJAZZ Collective, this sax-bass-drums format harkens back to the Berkeley, California-based artist's early days as a performer, more than 15 years ago. He was indeed working back east then, in Boston and New York City, and necessity as much as aesthetics often dictated the lineup. Sometimes a club he'd be playing simply wouldn't have a piano, in which case a quartet would be out of the question. But Redman, whom The New York Times has described as "a remarkably fluid improviser," isn't merely attempting to recall his scuffling roots. Back East is full of in-the-moment pleasures, thanks to the natural rapport between Redman and the three NYC-based rhythm sections with whom he works. But take a closer look at the songs he's chosen, the arrangements he's fashioned and the players he's hanging out with, and this set becomes even more deeply compelling. Redman incorporates a stunningly wide range of ideas, experiences and influences, creating a multi-layered self-portrait via the sounds, people, and places that have helped to shape his career.

On Back East, Redman says, there is "a sense of return to a style I associate with the east coast, a return to playing - for lack of a better description - modern, swing-based, acoustic jazz. This was and is my musical bread and butter, the core of what I do. That approach to playing is one I really immersed myself in and developed during my time on the east coast. In Boston, I wasn't studying music, but I was hanging out with a lot of musicians, and that's where I really learned how to play. And when I first moved to New York, I was still playing a lot of jam sessions, and doing lots of gigs at local clubs, bars and restaurants, sometimes with just bass and drums. So there's this sense of getting back to something that was really important to me in terms of my musical development but which I haven't captured so much recently through touring and recording."

While he was still working with the funk-infused, electrified Elastic Band, whose most recent project was the 2005 Nonesuch disc Momentum, Redman started to compose new material with an acoustic trio in mind. The process evolved into a sort of internal dialogue about the concepts of east and west, but not just in terms of two distinct coasts. "East" for Redman also represents non-western sounds - Middle Eastern, Indonesian, Indian, African - that have surfaced in his writing and arranging, and that came to play an important, if subtle, role here.

"As I was writing," Redman explains, "some eastern influences, which have always been in my music on some level, were coming out perhaps a little more strongly in this context. When I was really young, my mom took me to this place called the Center for World Music in Berkeley, where I studied (on a very rudimentary level, of course) South Indian drumming and Indonesian Gamelan. She also took me to all sorts of music and dance performances - Indian, Indonesian, Persian, North African, Japanese, Tibetan, you name it. There was a lot of that in the Bay Area in those days - a really eclectic, outward-looking, cross-cultural orientation." The spare, sinuous "Zarafah" is, at least in part, a nod to this period and a special dedication to his mother, dancer Renee Shedroff.

The east/west dichotomy soon became even more of a leitmotif. Says Redman, "One day I had one of those cool, quintessentially 21st century, digital music experiences. I had my iTunes on shuffle and the Sonny Rollins album Way Out West came on. I always loved that record, but I hadn't heard it in probably over a decade. "I'm An Old Cowhand" was playing and, man, it just sounded so amazing. It was almost like I was hearing it again for the first time. Naturally, it had a lot of relevance to the new music I was working on, because Sonny Rollins was probably the first, and arguably the greatest, saxophonist to really embrace the trio format. I got this burst of inspiration and came up with my own arrangement of "I'm An Old Cowhand." Sonny's influence is clearly there in terms of the hard-driving and freewheeling approach, but I used harmonies, melodies and rhythms that give this version a bit of an eastern flavor. Immediately after that I started working on an arrangement of "Wagon Wheels," also from Way Out West, which ended up with even more of that feeling."

Both of those tunes made it to Redman's final track list, and Rollins' 1957 classic trio outing, Way Out West, became a touchstone for the entire project: "There's something stark and contemplative about the trio format, but something liberating and exhilarating about it as well. There's an introspective quality, a real intensity to it, but that intensity can also be very emotive and outward-reaching. Perhaps that's part of the reason Sonny started to work with just bass and drums, so he could explore and express his ideas and emotions as freely as possible. That's one of the things about trio that I find so compelling. Don't get me wrong: I love the piano! And there is a lot of music I can't imagine playing without a pianist. But the absence of a dedicated harmonic instrument does create the possibility for much more freedom, in many different areas - harmonic, melodic, rhythmic, formal, textural. It's a lot of fun. But as the saying goes, 'with freedom, comes responsibility.' Playing trio can be uniquely liberating; and especially challenging!"

Redman had initially envisioned an album of mostly originals, but, with Rollins' vintage covers as a jumping-off point, he created new arrangements of songs originally composed by, or associated with, major saxophone influences, such as John Coltrane ("India"), Stan Getz ("East of the Sun") and Wayne Shorter ("Indian Song"). Although he was more accustomed to working with just a single set of players in the studio, for this project Redman chose to record with three different rhythm sections, all of them long-time collaborators as well as old friends, each bringing something unique to the mix. Bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Ali Jackson ("their sound together is so strong, centered, buoyant and clear" says Redman) play on six tracks, opening and closing the disc. Bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Eric Harland ("fluid, flexible, organic, energetic") can be heard on three, and bassist Christian McBride and drummer Brian Blade ("mature, soulful, empathetic, virtuosic") on the remaining two.

Sitting in on "Indian Song" is tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano, whom Redman describes as "a true hero, a huge influence, one of the greatest saxophonists to emerge post-Coltrane, a master of rhythm and phrasing." Playing soprano on Redman's own "Mantra #5" is Chris Cheek, who, "of all the saxophonists of my generation," says Redman, "has probably had the most profound impact on my own musical development. He completely knocked me out when I first heard him upon arriving in Boston. And over the next four years, listening to Chris really helped me find my way as a saxophonist and an improviser."

Foremost among Redman's guests was his 75-year-old father, the legendary Dewey Redman, who would, unfortunately, pass away several months after the Back East sessions were completed. Dewey plays tenor on "India." "We did a few takes," Joshua remembers, "and everything was cool. I was getting ready to start on another song when Dad said, 'Okay, but now I want to record something else, on alto..'" Dewey added he wanted to do it by himself, backed only by Grenadier and Jackson.

Slightly puzzled, Joshua left his father with his band-mates. "I walked around the corner and got an espresso, came back maybe eight minutes later, and Dad was already packing up. 'How'd it go?' I asked. 'Fine, one take,' he said. So I thought, 'Great. Let's move on.' We were kind of running behind in the session, so I didn't even really listen to the song then. In fact, I almost forgot about it. It wasn't until days later, when I was back at home in Berkeley, that I really got a chance to check it out. Of course, I was blown away. It's an incredible piece of music: so warm, deep and wise."

The track Dewey had created, "GJ" had been intended as a gift to Josh's infant son. It took on an even more profound cast after Dewey's passing. That studio date represented the final meeting of father and son as well as the last recording the elder Redman made. "GJ" became a gift to Joshua as well, a reminder of when he was performing back east with his father, in '91 and '92: "I played and toured with Dad a lot when I first came to New York. I really got to know him as a person as well as a master musician. Playing with him, having to solo after him every night, made me realize just how young and immature I was. It was his depth of soul, the hugeness and warmth and humanity of his sound. The wisdom and compassion and patience that lay behind every note he played. Probably more than anything, else, I learned from him about sound, about phrasing, and about how to play the blues."

"GJ" is a fitting coda, then, to an album that is as much about generations as geography. With Back East, Redman traces the path inspiration travels from decade to decade, coast to coast, continent to continent, artist to artist, heart to heart.

In addition to his own projects, Redman has been heard with an array of musicians including Ray Brown, Dave Brubeck, Chick Corea, Lionel Hampton, Roy Haynes, Milt Jackson, Elvin Jones, Quincy Jones, Joe Lovano, Marcus Miller, Paul Motian, Dianne Reeves, McCoy Tyner and Cedar Walton. He provided the music for the film Vanya on 42 nd Street and is both seen and heard in the Robert Altman film Kansas City. In 2001, Redman was named Artistic Director of the SF Jazz Spring Season (a program of the San Francisco Jazz Festival), and in 2004 he launched the SF Jazz Collective, an eight-piece ensemble dedicated to performing both commissioned works and new arrangements of the work of great jazz composers.

1985, 1996, 1999, 2002

	Friday Night - September 19, 2008 / 8:30pm
	Jimmy Lyons Stage

	Friday Night - September 19, 2008 / 11:00pm
	Night Club / Bill Berry Stage