Joshua Redman: Headin’ Home

Joshua Redman's 2000 album Beyond

Birthday greetings to saxophonist Joshua Redman, who celebrates No. 43 today.

Joshua follows father Dewey Redman in most jazz CD collections, but it wasn’t Dewey’s path which put him there. Nor was it so much his father’s influence, but his mother’s.

Renee Shedroff was a dancer and librarian in California; she and Joshua’s father never married, according to enotes.com. Shedroff raised Joshua — they would see Dewey when a concert tour brought him near, and Joshua would hear him among the sounds of a house filled with music — and she introduced him to the arts.

“His mother . . . was the driving force that nurtured his creativity,” wrote Matt Pierson on the liner notes to Redman’s debut 1993 album.

“Materially, I did not grow up privileged,” Joshua told the crimson.com in a 2011 interview. “My mother and I were on welfare at times when I was growing up. I wanted a sense of stability, and playing jazz wasn’t my first choice economically speaking.”

Medicine might have been. Or law. Just not music. Because of his scholarship, Redman didn’t lack for opportunities. He graduated first from his class in high school and went to Harvard, from where he graduated summa cum laude (he may not be the best saxophone player ever — he’s certainly up there — but he’s pretty surely the smartest).

Redman was accepted into law school at Yale, and according to pbs.org, intended to work in civil rights or social work. Like a lot of college graduates, he took time off before matriculating at Yale Law. Redman intended it to be only a year’s sabbatical; we’re now at 21, and counting. We’re guessing Yale’s not saving a spot for him any more.

“I didn’t grow up with my father around, but I know that he struggled to put food on the table for himself and for his family,” Redman told the crimson.com. “I knew that there were many challenges to becoming a creative musician with integrity.”

Perhaps so, and perhaps the challenges are more than we can appreciate. But we also can guess this much: Redman became a “creative musician with integrity,” because he started as one, more than two decades ago when he decided the world could do with just one less lawyer.

“The reason I am playing music is because there is a part of me that feels that I can’t do anything else or there is a part of me that feels I have to play music,” Redman said in an interview with Fred Jung at jazzweekly.com. “It gives me an inspiration and a fulfillment and a joy that nothing else does. That is why I chose to play it. So it wasn’t a career decision. It wasn’t a rational decision in that sense. It was a decision of the heart and soul.”

Sources: enotes.com, crimson.com, jazzwekly.com, pbs.org, baltimoresun.com

Jan Garbarek: The Creek

Jan Garbarek's Legend Of The Seven Dreams, rescued from a cutout bin

Birthday greetings to Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek, who celebrates No. 64 today.

You won’t normally hear Garbarek where you hear traditional jazz — his sound is usually referred to as European jazz. It’s instantly recognizable, sometimes haunting and often beautiful. But his roots are traditional American jazz; as a youngster, it was hearing John Coltrane play that inspired him to do likewise.

American pianist George Russell was Garbarek’s first big mentor after Russell settled for a time in Scandinavia – ironic, since Garbarek grew up in Norway the son of a Polish prisoner of war, who according to jazz.com, was deported to Norway as a laborer.

Garbarek’s work with pianist Keith Jarrett only increased the reputation of both through the 70s. But Garbarek has not been limited since he began recording more than 40 years ago – he has an extensive discography as a leader and a lengthy list of associates, from the most accomplished artists at the ECM record label to one-time unions with musicians the world over.

Most of Garbarek’s many albums are without liner notes, and while there are plenty of pictures of him, there are also just as many pictures of  countryside, presumably from his native Norway. Not surprisingly, Garabarek recently composed a song called: The Reluctant Saxophonist. “It could be me. I certainly feel like it sometimes,” he told jazz.com. ” . . . When you actually play it’s fun, but you have to get down to it and there other things to do, other thoughts to think.”

When he does play, there’s only one thought to think:  Tusen takk.

The link below is to The Creek, off his 1996 album Visible World.

Ike Quebec: “It’s Allright With Me”

On the anniversary of the death of saxophonist Ike Quebec. Despite his last name, Quebec was from Newark, N.J. Accomplished dancer and pianist. Addiction issues troubled him in 50s; rebounded to release his best work in early 60s. Died at 44 in 1963. Leonard Feather: “This incontestably superior musician has been almost totally ignored in the chronicling of the musical form to which he has contributed so much.”