Contact Me By Email

Atlanta, GA Weather from Weather Underground

Jackie McLean

John H. Armwood Jazz History Lecture Nashville's Cheekwood Arts Center 1989

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Joshua Redman's language: printer friendly version

Joshua Redman's language: printer friendly versionJoshua Redman's language
By Mike Zwerin Bloomberg News
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2005

PARIS You would think that anybody smart enough to graduate summa cum laude from Harvard would know better than to choose to be a jazz musician.

Although Joshua Redman was a hot tenor saxophone player in high school in Berkeley, California (his father, Dewey Redman, was also a hot tenor man), he did not grow up dreaming about being a musician. The valedictorian of his high school graduating class, he won a scholarship to Harvard, graduated summa cum laude in 1991 and was accepted to Yale Law School.

To pass the summer between college and graduate school, he entered the Thelonious Monk Foundation's saxophone contest, and, lo and behold, he won. It was beyond him. He had been chosen.

Redman's Elastic Band has just released a recording called "Momentum" on the Nonesuch record label. Using an organ trio format (plus guests including Flea, the bassist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) with flowing, deceptively simple blue-noted melodies on top, this is a 21st-century version of the electric, funky, backbeat jazz that Miles Davis began to scout out in 1970.

"In the army, there's always one guy 20 or 30 yards up ahead who makes sure the coast is clear," Davis's ex-drummer, Tony Williams, once said. "Then he waves to the other guys that it's safe to move up. Miles was the point man who took all the heat. There are no more point men."

The 36-year-old Redman is a word man. "Language is an exciting thing to me," Redman said in an interview. "I am always running up against the limits of my own language. I am always searching for the right way to express things.

"Sometimes I qualify everything so much that I end up not saying anything," Redman said. "I'm not a writer, but I feel like I have to choose my words carefully. When I started with e-mails, I felt like I had to write essays - complete sentences, caps, proper punctuation."

The sort of musician who writes his own album notes, Redman quickly became a straight-ahead star who defended the acoustic Broadway song-form tradition. His 1998 album "Timeless Tales (For Changing Times)" included the standards "Summertime" and "How Deep Is the Ocean." In the notes, he wrote that the album was about "infinite possibility" and "ageless beauty."

"The conception of timelessness is very different from the concept of nostalgia," he explains. "And classic does not necessarily mean conservative. Basically, what I'm saying is that timelessness is modern.

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:39 AM

    I came across you blog and thought you may find this site usefull. It has gas saving tips and where to find cheap gas. travel canada

    :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous2:48 AM

    Hi - I really like your website. I have one on martial art trickz here is the link to it. Come visit it and let me know what you think.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey, you have a great blog here! I'm definitely going to bookmark you!

    This is a posting promoting music related info on my site houston recording studio site/blog. It pretty much covers recording related stuff. my site is free for all to list their event post classified ad and to just post forum for hard to find info and many other thing music related. So if you are a dj, musician, producer, manager, engineer, artist, singer, dancer or have anything music related please visit my site and join to post all your info

    Joining is free for all list your site plus more

    houston recording studio

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous7:55 AM

    Hello, I started suffering from a blogging deficit disorder because Hurricane Wilma came crashing through our lives in Florida and stopped me from surfing a few hours a day. I spend most of my time looking for information on BocaCC Broker that I can use in my site ... but I like to take a break every now and then and hit the "next url" link at the top of the page. Which brought me to your blog ... and I just wanted to thank you for the look at something other than hurricane damage or my own bizness. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous6:44 PM

    John H. Armwood,

    I was looking at your blog post
    about website for .

    You can now place a link to
    your website on our website for free. See:

    http://www.quickregister.net/infowizards


    We get over 18,000 visitors per day.
    Many search under website for .

    We have a special category for website for
    in our search engine friendly directory.
    Your listing will be spidered by the search
    engines under website for .

    We hope you find this to be a
    good opportunity for some free
    advertising.


    Good luck,

    John,

    http://www.quickregister.net
    Free Search Engine Submission Service.

    ReplyDelete