Mar 18, 2025 3:00 PM
A Love Supreme at 60: Thoughts on Coltrane’s Masterwork
In his original liner notes to A Love Supreme, John Coltrane wrote: “Yes, it is true — ‘seek and ye shall…
With Elastic, Joshua Redman’s Warner Bros. album set for a Sept. 10 release, the saxophonist and composer rises to yet another artistic challenge in his diverse career. Known primarily for playing swing-based jazz with acoustic ensembles, Redman explores the new textures of electric instruments and funk rhythms. “The goal was to break down the boundaries between an open jazz aesthetic and a tight funk aesthetic,” Redman says. “Rather than creating a groove at the expense of spontaneity and interaction, I wanted to make music that has that clarity and assertiveness in the rhythm but is still open, fluid, flexible, elastic.”
For Redman, the essential idea behind Elastic is its jazz soul. Though he, keyboard player Sam Yahel and drummer Brian Blade are locked in a tight groove throughout the record, they maintain the freedom to improvise as they would within swing’s looser rhythmic setting. Recording Elastic was a creatively liberating experience. The trio’s live performances form the core of the record, with tastefully-used effects and overdubbed accents adding exciting layers to the band’s sound. The record’s 11 tracks draws from the improvisational skills of the band and Redman’s prowess as a composer to tell a dramatic musical story. Part of what makes the record remarkable is the way in which the performers express their own spontaneous ideas within a carefully defined song structure, blending the central tenets of jazz with those of soul, funk and blues.
This concept had long been germinating when Redman began jamming in the late 1990’s with Yahel and Blade at New York City club Small’s. Elastic is Redman’s ninth album as a bandleader and follows 2001’s long-form acoustic jazz suite Passage Of Time.
“This is one of the great gifts that Coltrane gave us — he gave us a key to the cosmos in this recording,” says John McLaughlin.
Mar 18, 2025 3:00 PM
In his original liner notes to A Love Supreme, John Coltrane wrote: “Yes, it is true — ‘seek and ye shall…
The Blue Note Jazz Festival New York kicks off May 27 with a James Moody 100th Birthday Celebration at Sony Hall.
Apr 8, 2025 1:23 PM
Blue Note Entertainment Group has unveiled the lineup for the 14th annual Blue Note Jazz Festival New York, featuring…
“I’m certainly influenced by Geri Allen,” said Iverson, during a live Blindfold Test at the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival.
Apr 15, 2025 11:44 AM
Between last Christmas and New Year’s Eve, Ethan Iverson performed as part of the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival in…
“At the end of the day, once you’ve run out of differences, we’re left with similarities,” Collier says. “Cultural differences are mitigated through 12 notes.”
Apr 15, 2025 11:55 AM
DownBeat has a long association with the Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference, the premiere…
“It kind of slows down, but it’s still kind of productive in a way, because you have something that you can be inspired by,” Andy Bey said on a 2019 episode of NPR Jazz Night in America, when he was 80. “The music is always inspiring.”
Apr 29, 2025 11:53 AM
Singer Andy Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with a four-octave range that encompassed a bellowing…
