While lecturing a jazz history class at the Hopkins Center yesterday, tenor saxophonist Joshua Redman said he wanted to "express himself honestly and directly" with his music.
Apparently he neglected to mention that he can also express himself with enough swing to make James Brown turn in his grave.
Playing to a full house at Spaulding Auditorium last night, the Joshua Redman band showcased exactly what has put them on the top of every major jazz critics' poll and shot them into the limelight of contemporary jazz -- their intensity, charisma, musicianship, originality and technical virtuosity.
The quintet started off the two-hour concert with "Mischief" from the album "MoodSwing," a medium-tempo number which featured bright, snappy solos by Redman and guitarist Peter Bernstein.
They were, however, just getting warm. The rest of the night featured up-tempo numbers primarily from Redman's latest album, "Freedom in the Groove," which seems rather timid and subdued in comparison to the band's bold interpretation of its contents last night.
The readily observable difference between the band's studio efforts and its live performance was the intensity of the rhythm section, which is remarkably dynamic in front of an audience.
Comprising Peter Martin (piano), Christopher Thomas (bass) and Brian Blade (drums), the trio was locked rhythmically in step with Redman's adventurous explorations of melodic structures as well as his abrupt changes in meter and tempo during solos.
The clear crowd favorite out of the three, however, was Blade, who dazzled the audience with aggressive, swinging drumming.
With fine-tuned control over the emotional direction of a composition, Blade directed the rhythm section to ecstatic climax with complex double and triple-time figures.
He rarely missed accenting Redman's melodic motifs with a perfectly-timed cymbal smash and constantly created new rhythmic expressions underneath the saxophone voice.
A mix of the percussive, polyrhythmic style of Miles Davis sideman Tony Williams and the musical conception of drummer Kenny Clarke, Blade treated the full house to essentially two hours of constant improvisation on the drum set.
His Latin-style drumming on Sonny Rollin's composition "St. Thomas" drew an enthusiastic response from the crowd, as did his solid brushwork on the last number of the night, Dizzy Gillespie's "Salt Peanuts."
Thomas, with Blade going off on his flights of fancy, was the steadfast timekeeper, always maintaining a sure metric reference point for the rest of the quintet. His pinpoint control over the emotional range of the bass was highlighted by both his pizzicato and bowed passages.
Martin, another steady performer of the group, provided solid accompaniment for Redman throughout the show, and had spirited solos on "Sweet Sorrow" and "Can't Dance," both Redman originals.
As a group, the quintet reinforced the idea of jazz as intelligent, serious music, and a genre which has not been devoid of innovation and creativity since its renaissance four decades ago.
