[Dixielandjazz] Dewey Redman Memorial in NYC

Steve Barbone barbonestreet at earthlink.net
Tue Jan 9 07:54:57 PST 2007


Somewhat off topic. The Jazz Memorial Services in NYC are similar to New
Orleans Jazz send offs,  even though this one had more modern music. And
this one for Dewey Redman (Joshua Redman's Dad) was something special given
the folks who played it.

Some Giants were in performance there.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

Remembering a Saxophonist and His Undefinable Appeal

NY TIMES - By BEN RATLIFF - January 9, 2007

At Sunday night¹s memorial service for the jazz saxophonist Dewey Redman, a
lot of fellow musicians and friends came forward with suppositions about
what made Mr. Redman special.

There was a consensus that it had something to do with his hometown, Fort
Worth, and the generous, countryish sound of saxophonists from that part of
the country. But he might have been a great jazz saxophonist had he grown up
in a dozen other places too. Mr. Redman had no fixations on a Southern
style; he just played as if he came from somewhere in particular and was of
something. 

Few jazz musicians these days have so much X factor in them, some quality
that lies outside of technical discipline, harmonic scholarliness, high
concept or compositional skill. Mr. Redman was never a master of improvising
through chord changes in the traditional sense. But first in the late 1960s
as Ornette Coleman¹s tenor player, later in groups with Keith Jarrett and
Charlie Haden and finally as a bandleader himself, he made it clear that he
had a natural, communicative power to engage and provoke.

³People play their best when they play with me,² he once said to Matt
Wilson, one of his drummers and the evening¹s M.C. At least part of the
time, that was actually true.

One of his friends, the saxophonist Joe Lovano ‹ who is 54 now ‹ spoke of
how his father, the bop-era Cleveland saxophonist Tony Lovano, adored the
fairly far-out Ornette Coleman record ³New York Is Now!² for the way Mr.
Redman¹s solos seemed to be ³speaking every line to him²; this was a common
reaction. 

Mr. Redman died of liver failure in September, at 75. The quality of the
praise directed toward him gave the sense that Sunday¹s memorial concert, at
St. Peter¹s Lutheran Church in Midtown, might be the first of many.

Things got deep quickly. The show began with a group including the pianist
Geri Allen, the bassist John Menegon, the drummer Jack DeJohnette and the
singer Teri Roiger, playing Mr. Redman¹s ³Dewey¹s Tune.² Then the guitarist
Pat Metheny, with Mr. Haden, the bassist, and Mr. DeJohnette, played ³The
Bat,² a ballad of Mr. Metheny¹s that, on the Metheny album ³80/81,² contains
one of Mr. Redman¹s most delicate solos. There was beautiful, long-line
melodic improvising in it, over the barest drumming and cymbal-tapping.

Most of the musicians from Mr. Redman¹s own bands of the last 25 years
played something, including the pianists Charles Eubanks and Frank Kimbrough
and the bassists Cameron Brown and Mark Helias. A few singers ‹ Ms. Roiger,
Sheila Jordan, Judi Silvano ‹ honored both the vocal quality of Mr. Redman¹s
playing and his tendency to perform durable old ballad standards.

The pianist Ethan Iverson and the bassist Reid Anderson, both of the trio
the Bad Plus, with Mr. Wilson on drums, got off a version of Mr. Coleman¹s
³Broken Shadows² that demonstrated the slippery harmonic mobility Mr. Redman
played so easily. And Joshua Redman, Dewey Redman¹s son, played a startling
piece on tenor saxophone, unaccompanied, and very unlike the rest of his
music: it was slow and minor and wary, using the horn¹s full range, putting
space between short phrases.

Inevitably, it all came down to the blues, which Mr. Redman could play as
well as anyone. The show ended with Mr. Coleman¹s blues ³Turnaround,² with a
group for the record books: Joshua Redman, Mr. Metheny, Mr. Haden and the
drummer Roy Haynes. The solos were built of rangy lines with direct impact,
and Mr. Metheny played with slangy country phrasing. The rhythm section put
the tune aslant, giving it attitude and resonance and swing.




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