Joshua Redman - Trios Live (2014) [Hi-Res]

Joshua Redman has always been a mellow listen. He makes playing the saxophone sound as natural and real as breathing, and that’s a gift. In a sense nothing has changed from the time he emerged in the 1990s only the levels of intuition are that bit more heightened and enhanced, the saxophone mastery a given. Piano-less, Trios Live could have been recorded at any time since Redman arrived fully formed as a player with something to say and the means of saying it, and his approach is still caught up in creating personality jazz in the sense that the saxophone has a personality, an individuality of sound pouring from his mouth.
Released just over a year on from the Beatles, Bach, and balmy string flavours of Walking Shadows, an album that gets better and better the more you listen to it, Trios Live was recorded at New York club Jazz Standard and Washington DC spot Blues Alley, and opens bravely with ‘Moritat’, the oblique way of referring to ‘Mack the Knife’, not at all a cutting edge choice here, but taken for a walk nonetheless that manages to confound expectations.
Redman is joined by drummer Gregory Hutchinson with bassist Matt Penman for the New York date; Hutchinson again but this time Charles Lloyd bassist Reuben Rogers joining Redman for the DC segment. The album comes alive after the beauty of the rendition of ‘Never Let Me Go’, on Redman’s own tune ‘Soul Dance’ three tracks in, all the off mic shouts and spilling-out energy from the band spurring the saxophonist on and there’s plenty of sinewy, and very involved, blowing from the leader on ‘Act Natural’ the next track, almost the sub-title of a work that values authenticity and not just because it’s a live album.
The a cappella soprano sax opening flourish on ‘Mantra #5’ is, if you like, the sorbet, the tangy Thelonious Monk tune ‘Trinkle Tinkle’ next not as much of a surprise as the inclusion of Led Zep tune ‘The Ocean’ somehow Redmanised the jazz club crowd getting behind the sax player as he slap tongues and keys his way through to a riff-fuelled wrap where, as ever, he succeeds in trying a little tenderness. (Stephen Graham)