Feb 3, 2026 12:10 AM
In Memoriam: Ken Peplowski, 1959–2026
Ken Peplowski, a clarinetist and tenor saxophonist who straddled the worlds of traditional and modern jazz, died Feb. 2…
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.
Peplowski first came to prominence in legacy swing bands, including the final iteration of the Benny Goodman Orchestra, before beginning a solo career in the late 1980s.
Feb 3, 2026 12:10 AM
Ken Peplowski, a clarinetist and tenor saxophonist who straddled the worlds of traditional and modern jazz, died Feb. 2…
Hammond came to the blues through the folk boom of the late 1950s and early 1960s, which he experienced firsthand in New York’s Greenwich Village.
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“I play what I want and what I like,” said Andrew Cyrille. “I use my knowledge artistically and professionally.”
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Marsalis will, if he chooses to use it, have a strong voice in perpetuating his vision through a role in choosing his successors.
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For the better part of a year, rumors have been swirling that Wynton Marsalis was going to step down as artistic and…
