In the liner notes of his 1993 self-titled release, Joshua Redman
addresses two camps of jazz — the traditional and the
avant-garde, the former being steeped in knowledge of one’s history and
a pedagogy of memorization through repetition, while the latter (the
camp his father, the famous free-jazz saxophonist Dewey Redman, along
with his peer Ornette Coleman tend to represent) dedicates itself to
pushing the boundaries of the form and breaking the rules. Judging by
the set list and performance on Wednesday night at Yoshi’s in Oakland,
the Berkeley native has ensconced himself in both. During his
eighty-plus-minute set, Redman jumped back and forth between original
work and jazz standards from the likes of Rodgers and Hammerstein,
Thelonious Monk, and Wayne Shorter.
Redman opened with Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Surrey with the Fringe
on Top,” displaying his control and chops with ease and, indeed, having
a little fun before diving into murkier waters. If the first song
served as a starting block, the second was the pistol, an original
composition from Compass, Redman’s latest release.
“Insomnomaniac” begins like a frenzied (and futile) race toward sleep.
Midway through the number, Redman set his saxophone down and wiped the
sweat from his brow while the bassist, Matt Penman, performed one of
his many solos throughout the night. Redman moaned his approval,
reminiscent of Monk keeping time at the piano, and looked out at the
audience as if to ask, “Did you hear what this guy just did?” When
Redman picked up the baton again, Gregory Hutchinson’s drums slowed the
rhythm down, and the band trotted across the finish line with the
strength and force of a pack of elephants. The first two songs set the
pace for the rest of the night.
The highlights of the evening came when the band wore the mantle of
the avant-garde. In these moments, Hutchinson’s drums became smoking
cauldrons, his sticks wands. His shoulder-shrugging, moaning, and
grimacing were the incantations of a mystic. Redman was in happy
communion with Penman and Hutchinson, chipping away at the distance
between the band onstage and the audience below them. When the group’s
set came to a close with the final notes of “Hide and Seek,” the
audience had certainly caught up with the band and asked them for an
encore. They returned to perform “Little Ditty,” another original from
Compass. Its simple opening, like the title, catches the
listener off guard. The ensemble explored complex emotions that were
anything but little. These were the moments when the music did exactly
what it should: It enchanted the audience with its direct,
pre-linguistic communication of the soul.
