Capítulo 3 Diseño del sistema
4.2 Modulo de la aplicación
A
s Joshua Redman spoke with DownBeat about rios Live, his 14th album as a leader, the value o working with a tight-knit group otrustworthy musicians kept coming up.
“I try as much as possible to have a regular working band,”
the 45-year-old saxophonist said. “Because when you’re playing with musicians that you’re amiliar with, both musically and per-sonally, you develop rapport and empathy. Tat really rees us as musicians and allows the music to soar and become something more than the sum o its parts.”
Te tracks on rios Live, released June 17 on Nonesuch, were culled rom an October 2009 engagement at the Jazz Standard in Manhattan and shows perormed in February 2013 at Blues Alley in Washington, D.C. Matt Penman was the bassist or the ormer dates and Reuben Rogers on the latter, with Gregory Hutchinson drumming on both.
“I love playing in that ormat,” Redman said o the saxophone trio. “Tere was a peri-od o time where that was really the main thing I did.”
His unofficial trilogy o trio albums started in 2007 with Back East (Nonesuch). It ea-tured three different rhythm sections—Rogers and Harland; bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Ali Jackson; and bassist Christian McBride and drummer Brian Blade—as well as guest contributions rom saxophonists Joe Lovano, Chris Cheek and Dewey Redman, Joshua’s late ather.
Compass (Nonesuch), which came out in 2009, upped the traditional sax trio ante.
With Grenadier, Rogers, Hutchinson and Blade returning, Redman recorded with all our possible trio permutations plus quartet tracks with two basses, and even “double trios”
with all �ve musicians.
“I eel like even though I did two records, there was an aspect o our sound and con-ception … that really hadn’t been heard on record,” Redman said, alternating between occasional sips o espresso and chilled water at the cae Babette in Berkeley, Cali.
“I realized it could only be captured live.”
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Te rios Live dates were initially recorded or Redman’s personal archives, he explained. Live sound engineer Paul Booth, who had his record-ing equipment with him, asked Redman i he wanted the shows captured or posterity.
Afer listening to the recordings last year, Redman made a discovery: Although he wasn’t necessarily satis�ed with his own playing—“prob-ably the vast majority o it,” he says, with a laugh—
he was reminded there was something special about the ampli�ed atmosphere o a live date.
“I realized there was a certain spirit, a certain kind o intensity, exuberance and, most o all,
reedom and reewheeling quality that we had live that really hadn’t been captured in the studio,” he said. “Tere’s a raw, un�ltered energy there.”
With his sel-critical ear, Redman went through the material or nearly every night o sev-eral o his trios’ extended club engagements—“a very painul process,” he admitted. Eventually he narrowed the hours and hours o materia l down to the 58 minutes that appear on the album.
Te program starts and concludes with a pair o standards: “Mack Te Knie” and “Never Let Me Go,” to open, with Telonious Monk’s
“rinkle inkle” and Led Zeppelin’s “Te Ocean”
closing it out. rios Live also offers our Redman originals that showcase a �uid, driven and joyul group interaction. It builds off Redman’s previous domestic live album, 1995’s Spirit Of Te Moment (Warner Bros.), which was taken rom Village Vanguard gigs that March with his then-current quartet o Blade, bassist Christopher Tomas and pianist Peter Martin.
“Hutch is absolutely on �re on these tracks,”
Redman wrote later in a text message. “One thing I’m most proud about is the way the album cap-tures Greg’s amazing eel and reedom and power
and groove. And at the risk o sounding sel-con-gratulatory, I think it’s one o the better documen-tations o his playing on record.”
Along with pianist Aaron Goldberg, Rogers and Hutchinson are members o Redman’s cur-rent quartet, which reconvened in the spring o
2013. Redman and Penman are members o the James Farm band along with pianist Aaron Parks and drummer Eric Harland. And Penman and Harland, in turn, played with Redman in the SFJAZZ Collective rom 2005 through 2007.
Redman and Hutchinson’s history dates back to 1991. Goldberg and Rogers �rst met a year later, and the our were a unit rom 1998 through 2001 beore Redman switched his ocus, �rst to his key-board-based Elastic Band and then his acoustic trios.
“We still have this deep connection, and in many ways we’ve matured,” Goldberg said.
“During that break, I think we got some perspective.”
Redman has one o the better-known biogra-phies in modern jazz. He amously went rom being an academic powerhouse (1986 Berkeley High School valedictorian; a summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate rom Harvard in 1991) who played saxophone as an extracur-ricular activity—albeit to much acclaim—to become the winner o the 1991 Telonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition. A Warner Bros. recording contract with steady gig bookings and plenty o press coverage ollowed.
Going rom undergraduate studies to quick stardom didn’t allow Redman the opportunity
or a long-term apprenticeship in a veteran lead-er’s band.
“He went straight to making records and touring,” said McBride, who �rst played
J A Y B L A K E S B E R G
Joshua Redman’s new album is Trios Live .
with Redman less than a year afer his Monk Competition win. “We can all saely say that it’s worked out or him.”
“Communication is prime in jazz, and that’s important or Joshua,” Goldberg said. “Tere are musicians he enjoys listening to but doesn’t nec-essarily have a natural connection to. Over the years, we’ve created a conversational environment in which we all eel comortable and inspired.”
Te DNA to rios Live can be ound in Redman’s eponymous debut album, released by Warner Bros. in 1993. It boasts multiple rhythm sections, a mix o originals and standards and even a trio track (“rinkle inkle” provides some illuminating A/B comparisons between his play-ing then and now). Hutchinson and McBride were two o the seven other musicians who participated.
Tere’s also a “new standard,” James Brown’s
“I Got You (I Feel Good).” Redman has since gained a reputation or interpreting songs that were born roughly within his lietime.
Among the most recent is New York noise-rockers Blonde Redhead’s “Doll Is Mine”
rom 2004. He reinterpreted it on his emotive 2012 ballads-with-orchestra album Walking Shadows (Nonesuch)—produced by longtime riend and colleague Brad Mehldau—and routinely plays it live with his quartet.
“People make a lot about that—I’m not trying to make any statement about pop music and its relationship to jazz,” Redman clari�ed. “I’m just looking or music that I think eels right with a particular band. Especially with trio. At its best, it can be one o the most exciting, liberating or-mats. But because you lack the harmonic instru-ment, it’s also very easy or things to start sound-ing the same. So I do look or a variety o music.”
Citing his own eclectic listening preerences, Redman believes that it’s natural or that variety to be expressed in his own musical choices. As his artistry has grown, he has strived or a group sound to serve as the uniying element amid a diversity o material.
In early June, Redman’s quartet (with Joe Sanders substituting or Rogers) was part o a double bill with Charlie Musselwhite, who head-lined the Healdsburg Jazz Festival in Northern Caliornia. He and the blues harmonica legend sounded like longtime road warriors, perorm-ing Nat Adderley’s “Work Song” together with Sanders, Goldberg and Hutchinson.
Tat open-eared eclecticism also proved
use-ul in late April and May, when Redman partic-ipated in “Atomic Bomb: Te Music o William Onyeabor,” a �ve-date mini-tour spearheaded by
ormer alking Heads rontman David Byrne.
“I wasn’t really super-amiliar with William Onyeabor’s music,” he said. “I read some article in the New York imes about it and thought, ‘Yeah, I’m going to check out this album’”—a compila-tion o the Nigerian unk musician’s work rom the ’70s and ’80s that was released on Byrne’s Luaka Bop label.
A call later came rom Luaka Bop inquiring i
he’d like to be an additional, high-pro�le member o the horn section or a specially assembled trib-ute band.
“I had no experience playing any sort o
Arobeat or Aropop, so I thought, ‘Hey, this is
a chance to play a totally different kind o music with completely different musicians.’”
Relishing the chance to play with Byrne—“I came o age when alking Heads were huge,” he said—Redman also shared the stage with vocalist/
keyboardist Alexis aylor rom Hot Chip, vocalist Kele Okereke rom Bloc Party and drummer Pat Mahoney, ormerly o LCD Soundsystem.
Eyeing summer dates or his quartet and all engagements with his trio plus additional dates in August and September with Te Bad Plus (with whom he occasionally teams up), Redman is also looking orward to releasing the sophomore James Farm album. “We just �nished it,” he said, tapping
on the smart phone in his pocket. “In act, I think I just got the master.
“I never say this about my own records, but this is a special one,” he added. “I think it’s a real step
orward or the band. We really ound ourselves, and there are some really good tunes on there.”
When he’s not touring or in the studio, Redman is at home in Berkeley with his wie and their two young children. But he always relish-es an opportunity to make music with his com-rades: “One o the greatest things about being a bandleader is having the opportunity to surround mysel with musicians that I eel closest to.” DB
Rebirth Brass Band, standing, from left: Glen Andrews, Vincent Broussard, Philip Frazier, Derrick Shezbie, Chadrick Honore and Stafford Agee. On the front row are Gregory Veals and Keith Frazier. (Derrick Tabb is not pictured.)
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