CD review: Joshua Redman Quartet – Come What May 2019: Video, CD cover

Joshua RedmanIt has been quite a while since this Joshua Redman Quartet configuration has issued an album, some 20 years or so in fact since Redman last teamed up with Aaron Goldberg, Reuben Rogers and Gregory Hutchinson in the easy mainstream space that Redman has virtually made his own over the years.

Previous releases were Beyond (2000) and Passage of Time (2001). The Quartet, which has toured internationally over the last several years, recorded seven Redman tunes for Come What May.
The Guardian has called Redman “one of the 21st century’s finest jazz improvisers,” and the Boston Globe said of the group’s recent Newport Jazz Festival performance, “There was tenor Joshua Redman with his quartet, showing how to build excitement and get the crowd screaming without pressing or compromising his art.”

… Redman recently said of Goldberg, Rogers, and Hutchinson, in Denver’s Westword newspaper, “They’re some of my favorite musicians in the world. We’ve played so much over the years and have been together on the road so much, on and off the bandstand, there’s just that sort of camaraderie and friendship and genuine love for and understanding of each other that, for me, [is] the ideal situation for making music. When you have that level of trust and empathy, both musically and personally, it allows you to be truly relaxed and free; and those are really good pre-conditions for magic to potentially happen.

Joshua Redman’s first album on Nonesuch was the Grammy-nominated Momentum (2005). His other releases on the label include Back East, Compass, and Trios Live, all of which explore the trio format; MoodSwing (1994, re-issued); Walking Shadows (2013), his first recording to include an orchestral ensemble; The Bad Plus Joshua Redman (2015), a collaboration with the acclaimed trio; Nearness (2016), a duo album with longtime friend and collaborator Brad Mehldau; and the 2018 Grammy-nominated Still Dreaming — an album inspired by his father Dewey Redman’s 1976–1987 band, Old and New Dreams.

1 Circle of Life
2 I’ll Go Mine
3 Come What May
4 How We Do
5 DGAF
6 Stagger Bear
7 Vast

Joshua Redman, saxophone
Aaron Goldberg, piano
Reuben Rogers, bass
Gregory Hutchinson, drums