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I still dream with Joshua Redman, Ron Miles, Scott Colley and Brian Blade
When: November 13, 8 pm
Or: Chan Center for the Performing Arts
Tickets and info: tickets.ubc.ca
The saxophonist Joshua Redman leads a spectacular band consisting of cornetist Ron Miles, bbadist Scott Colley and drummer Brian Blade, through eight songs filled with energetic improvisations and a lot of open elasticity. Six of the songs are original compositions by band members, the other two are Charlie Haden's Playing and La Belle Comme Il Faut d'Ornette Coleman.
These two melodies are part of the Still Dreaming project with Old and New Dreams, a quartet featuring Redman's father, Dewey Redman, bbadist Charlie Haden, cornetist Don Cherry and drummer Ed Blackwell.
The four heavyweights played as members of Coleman's free jazz groups. From 1976 to 1987, under the name of Old and New Dreams, musicians continued to revisit and develop the music of that time. Joshua remembers listening to a lot of this music as he grows up and admits that this style of jazz is still alive.
"I did not grow up with my dad, but with his music, whether as a leader or in other artist groups, and I was lucky enough to see Old and New Dreams," he said. Redman. "But growing up with that sound and a lot of jazz around me, I'm not sure I understand what made it so" invisible ". Frankly, some of the games my dad played in Old and New Dreams and with Ornette incredibly compelling and beautiful. "
But the running music lacked a predetermined harmonic or rhythmic form. Coleman was one of the first to develop these ideas and resulted in notable recordings such as The 1959 Jazz Shape and The 1960s Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation. These recordings led Miles Davis to state that Coleman was "completely messed up inside". But his music also had champions and Joshua Redman thinks that the beautiful melodies of songs like Comme Il Faut are indisputable.
"Everything that Ornette has played, even in its most abstract form, has always affirmed the primacy of melody," said Redman. "He had always improvised this lyrical and melodic quality to create new melodies, which in turn generated harmonic and rhythmic implications from which the band would improvise."
While Redman learned to play improvisations and was seriously interested in jazz, free style was not as much put forward as mastering changes in a lyrical and technical context. He says that he never really found himself in this free space before he started playing Bad Plus in 2011.
"They do not look like Ornette or Old and New Dreams, but this music was a touchstone for them and they play a lot of music that is heavily influenced by this approach," he said. "Playing with them and touching a point of my influence and my heritage gave me the idea of getting this band together and seeing what we could explore in terms of that kind of music."
All members of Still Dreaming are major players. Not one comes from a free-jazz background, favoring this intense, precise and fluid style. They are all very good improvisers, of course, but this was the first time that Redman had formed a band from a predefined concept.
"I knew that each of them had links to this music, but especially that they had a direct relationship with the members of Old and New Dreams," he said. "Ron has a lot of Don Cherry in his sound, in his desire to bring other textures and non-traditional techniques to the horn. Scott was a protégé of Charlie Haden, one of his early teachers. Brian and I played a lot together.
Songs such as Still Dreaming, such as Colley's first opus, clearly show that Redman has read the sensibilities of the players. The eight-step phrases that Colley and Blade badociate go hand in hand with a fierce, fierce movement as Miles' cornet floats between the almost clbadic bebop lines and combines with the saxophone for a smooth conversation between the two. It is obvious that this is a music created for the concert scene.
"The outdoor community is a very serious and accomplished group of improvisers, of which I am certainly not a card-carrying member, but I think if you know the language, you can have a conversation," he said. he declares. "The strength lies in the ability and willingness of members to listen to each other. Because playing with a lack of predetermined form does not mean that there is no form, it must simply happen through improvisation. "
It's clear that Still Dreaming offers a way to look for alternatives to other music he has created during his acclaimed career. He finds that playing openly without pre-established forms gives the quartet all kinds of opportunities to find new ways to play music. It's very entertaining.
In addition, no member of old and new dreams is still alive. So for the dream to continue, you need bands like Still Dreaming.
"We are certainly not the only ones to do that and I do not mean that, because Ornette's legacy and those other musicians are now part of the language and essence of jazz." , did he declare. "But Charlie Haden was struck by the fact that he was the last of those guys to follow, followed by Ornette, which made me feel more ready than ever to be more adventurous. and full of soul as we deepen our work. "
When recording in the studio, the ideas are controlled by the requirements of the delivery medium. Redman says that they went to the studio during a touring break, and we were at a time when live music was already starting to become very long songs, vast and open and turning into a new into something new . I did not know how it would work in the studio, but we decided to make some versions of everything we played in the set and try to keep them short. "
With many songs recording more than 14 minutes live, it would not work for a single album pressed on vinyl. Then the group came in, kept it focused and found themselves with 25 songs to listen to. Redman says that many good times did not make the final cut to get to a "40-minute vinyl program".
He recommends coming to see Still Dreaming live to taste the rest.
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