Back East

Joshua Redman, Yaya3 | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 24, 2007)
• Original Release Date: 2007
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Nonesuch
• ASIN: B000N4S95Q
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #117,281 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Sonny Rollins's 1957 release Way Out West established the pianoless bass-sax-drum configuration. The Berkeley-raised tenor/soprano saxophonist Joshua Redman's geographically reversed tribute was recorded in New York, where his career began. It features three sets of trios, with drummers Brian Blade, Eric Harland, and Ali Jackson and bassists Rueben Rogers, Christian McBride, and Larry Grenadier. Redman's sure-headed, serpentine, and sensual saxlines upgrade the two WOW tracks "I'm an Old Cowhand" and "Wagon Wheels" with Afro-Asian rhythmic motifs. Joe Lovano, Chris Cheek, and the leader's late father Dewey Redman lend their sax sounds to selections by Redman's horn influences: "Indian Song" by Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane's "India," and the Stan Getz-associated ballad "East of the Sun (and West of the Moon)." Redman's compositions--"Mantra #5," the tantric-tempoed "Indonesia," the title track, and "GJ," a touching dedication from Joshua Redman's dad to his grandson--complete the thrilling project from this future saxophone colossus. --Eugene Holley, Jr.

Product Description

Joshua Redman mixes originals with standards in tribute of the great sax players before him, on his new album Back East. But Redman doesn't just pay homage with these tunes, he makes them his own, adding a different sort of "eastern" feel to both the covers and his original compositions. With many special guest performers, including his own father, Redman has created a eloquent gift for the music world.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars How to navigate the perils of a saxophone trio, June 20, 2007

By 

Anthony Cooper (Louisville, KY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Back East (Audio CD)

A saxophone trio album can be tricky, since the saxophonist has to pretty much carry the entire load. If the sax playing isn't utter genius (think of Ornette Coleman's "At The Golden Circle"), then you can get a CD that seems to go on for too long (think of Branford Marsalis's "Bloomington"). Joshua Redman does a few things to avoid that pitfall. The first thing is call in three guest saxophonists, Chris Cheek, Joe Lovano, and Dewey Redman, to appear on three different songs. The two-sax songs are sprinkled through the CD. Another way to avoid monotony is to have three different rhythm sections. All three sections are top-notch, and you get the sense they're playing to the song and the saxophone, not to out-do the other bassists and drummers. Larry Grenadier and Ali Jackson play on most of the songs. Lastly, the songs are kept relatively short, so it isn't too long before a new melody or tempo is introduced.

Joshua Redman starts off with an old warhorse, "Surrey With The Fringe On Top" and freshens it up a little by chopping up the rhythm. Most of the rest of the songs have an Asian reference in their title, and to a lesser extent in their music. I'm not sure how "I'm An Old Cowhand" and "Wagon Wheels" fit in with the theme, since they're western songs . At any rate, the standards are nicely played, and the new compositions are also good. It's simply a top-notch album, and is highly recommended. This will be one of the better CD's of 2007. The last song doesn't have Joshua on it, but has Dewey Redman playing for his granddaughter. It's interestingly free-jazzy, and perhaps a suitable capstone to Dewey's long and interesting career.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Always Open Ears For Josh - Always Time For Dewey, June 2, 2007

By 

James Bonevich "Jazz Librarian" (Kalamazoo, MI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Back East (Audio CD)

Nowhere is it written that expressing angst is in the sole dominion of the consternated pop/alt./rockers and their ilk. Joshua Redman makes that clear by bailing himself out of San Fran (temporarily), scooping up his little bambino, and coming "Back East" to bury his father. Josh has plenty of strong emotions to work out in front of us, and we should have no problem with that. This is healthy music-making. There's also the palpable sense that Redman was jonesing big-time to play again in a trio setting with Brian Blade, his musical alter-ego. Other drummers are on-board besides Blade, but it's not the first time, as some have suggested, that Brian and Josh have recorded in a trio. See Yaya3 for proof of that (with no bassist, but bass-end courtesy of B3-er Sam Yahel). This isn't even the first time that Josh has recorded with just the bare-bones sax-bass-drums thing going on (see isolated tracks on Joshua Redman, Wish, and Spirit Of The Moment: Live At The Village Vanguard). But an entire album of it? Yes, now we're talking "Back East" style. Before getting all caught up with this distinction, however, just watch those lines get blurred by some of these trios morphing into quartets with the addition of some very special guests.

It's impossible to write this review and not drop the name Sonny Rollins, since a full third of the tracks here are tunes that Newk explored within the very same trio constraints back in the late 50's, and you know that Josh loves his Newk. He doesn't try to sound like Rollins here - he just invokes Sonny's powerful visage. The name and the sound, both invoked and actually present, which "Back East" *is* suffused with is that of Joshua's late father, Dewey Redman. My first exposure to the music of Dewey Redman came in the mid 70's when he was part of Keith Jarrett's incendiary American combo that made recordings for Impulse!, but I have to confess that most of it went way over my head at the time. What really made me pay attention to Dewey was his significant contribution to Pat Metheny's ECM double-album 80/81, right there next to Jack DeJohnette, Charlie Haden (also a vet of that Jarrett unit), Metheny, and the late Michael Brecker. What a free-emotive ear-opening revelation Dewey was on those tunes! Next came my awareness of the outfit known as "Old And New Dreams" with Don Cherry, Ed Blackwell, and Haden again, which really convinced me that it was Miles Davis who was "all messed up inside" and not Ornette Coleman. And in the midst of all this great music came a Dewey Redman album for the ages - 1983's "The Struggle Continues" on ECM. Search hard in used vinyl shops for it - or even harder for a CD copy.

So what does any of this have to do with Joshua Redman's new self-produced title on Nonesuch? The answer is: everything. Josh has some of the biggest ears on this planet - don't go thinking for a minute that any of this stuff from the late 70's and 80's was lost on him, even if he tells you that he had to "come back" for some of it (he grew up apart from his dad with his mother in the Bay Area). Once Josh made the commitment to music over law school, *all* the great tenors who came before him contributed something to his jurisprudence of jazz degree. And with this latest offering, Redman (the younger) continues to show off his very sponge-like abilities even further. If there were just a few more tracks like the Josh original "Indonesia" (which isn't exactly gamelan, but sure ain't no 12-bar blues either) or the Coltrane gem "India" (performed in 4tet with father Dewey), or the Shorter jewel "Indian Song" (4tet with Joe Lovano, tune lifted from Wayne's o.o.p. 1965 album "Etcetera") this review would be attached to a 5-star rating. But 4 stars is still pretty darned good, and "Back East" is worth extra spins just to reflect on the incredible musical legacy left to us by Dewey Redman, who not so incidentally gets the last dance all to himself (in a trio) for the set closer. Salaam, Dewey. Great album, Josh.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Melodic and harmonic beauty ., April 30, 2007

By 

Jimmy.M (New York City,USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Back East (Audio CD)

"Back East" is Joshua Redman's first recording in an acoustic-trio setting and his first all-acoustic outing since his 2001 Warner Bros disc, "Passage of Time".
Recorded in New York City, it features the Berkeley, California-based Redman with three different, all-star rhythms sections, and a few carefully chosen guest players, most notably his father Dewey, who, unfortunately, passed away shortly after this album was completed.
Redman mixes originals with standards, selected in part to pay tribute to the great sax players who've inspired him, including John Coltrane ("India"), Wayne Shorter ("Indian Song") and Stan Getz ("East of the Sun", a tune associated with Getz).
Most significantly, he reinterprets two songs from Sonny Rollins' 1957 classic acoustic-trio set, "Way Out West".
The three distinct rhythm sections Redman cut these tracks with are old friends and frequent collaborators of Redman's, as well as marquee names in contemporary jazz: bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Ali Jackson, bassist Christian McBride and drummer Brian Blade, bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Eric Harland. Joe Lavano, whom Redman calls "one of the greatest saxophonists to emerge in the post-Coltrane generation," guests on "Indian Song"; Chris Cheek, whom Redman considers his biggest contemporary influence, sits in on Redman's own "Mantra #5".
Dewey Redman plays tenor on a version of Coltrane's "India", then performs alone on alto for the album's eloquent coda, an original Dewey Redman number called "GJ", written as a gift for Josh's infant son - a track that turned out to be the final session of Dewey's life.
Joshua is bravely measuring himself against the tenor titan in that album's signature mode: the pianoless trio, jazz's version of the net-free high-wire act. To say that Redman doesn't soar like Rollins would belabor the obvious - but he doesn't pull an "Icarus", either.
Only occasionally does he lapse into scales and rote riffing. Otherwise, he digs right in, finding melodic and harmonic beauty - along with a good deal of excitment - in every bar.