Joshua Redman, with bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Greg Hutchinson, featured players on Redman's recent Nonesuch release, Compass, play the Dakota Jazz club in Minneapolis tonight and tomorrow, before starting a European tour later this week. "Redman has made some fine albums in the past," says All About Jazz, "but he's never recorded one with such clarity of purpose as the self-produced Compass." And with its success, "there's the palpable sense that the Redman has opened himself up to all manner of possibilities for future musical endeavors, proceeding directly from the cathartic self-renewal that is Compass.

Joshua Redman's recently released double-trio album, Compass, finds the saxophonist "doing his best work yet," says the San Jose Mercury News. The album exhibits "a mood that ranges from ghostly to goosebump exuberant." Redman and "some of the best players of his generation" come together for interplay that is at once "intuitive, rambunctious, brilliant." The Vancouver Sun exclaims: "In or out of the groove, Redman and company perform magnificently."

Joshua Redman brought the complete Compass Double Trio out last week for shows from New York City to Boston to Albany. The Boston Globe says Redman "put on the show of his life" at Boston's Berklee Performance Center. "Redman has always been an entertaining musician, but Thursday he played more confidently and powerfully than ever." The Boston Herald says that with "four of the best rhythm section players in the business ... Redman navigated a constantly changing rhythmscape with the serene intensity that has marked his career." The Schenectady Daily Gazette describes the Friday night set in Albany as "50 minutes that encapsulated the history of
post-Sonny Rollins jazz" and reached "heights only the best jazz bands
can reach."

After performing the second of two consecutive nights at New York's Highline last night, Joshua Redman and his Double Trio head up to Boston to play the Berklee Performance Center tonight, then out to Albany for their last show with all five musicians featured on Redman's new album, Compass. Previewing Friday's show at Albany's The Egg, the Schenectady Daily Gazette writes of Redman's successful venture with the double-trio format: "The idea worked so well on record that now Redman is experimenting with the double-trio format live." Metro Canada gives Compass three-and-a-half stars.

Joshua Redman and his Double Trio—bassists Larry Grenadier and Reuben Rogers and drummers Brian Blade and Gregory Hutchinson—all of whom play together on the recently released Compass, play their second consecutive night at New York's Highline Ballroom tonight. The New York Times calls the new album "superb" and finds Redman "making some of the best music of his career." In last night's set, "Mr. Redman worked fast and fluid, never exhausting his options," says the Times. "At almost every turn he seemed intensely focused but unpressured and completely in command."

Joshua Redman marks the release of his latest album, Compass, in his first live performances with the double trio featured on the record, bassists Reuben Rogers and Larry Grenadier and drummers Greg Hutchinson and Brian Blade, tonight and tomorrow at New York City's Highline Ballroom and in Boston and Albany later in the week. The New York Times recommends the concerts, saying that the album's double-trio format leads to "a result that feels rewardingly loose ... the sort of jazz interaction that can only be further clarified by live performance." The Boston Globe calls the ensemble "a fascinating sonic experiment" that both displays its "supple touch" and creates "churning crescendos."

Joshua Redman's latest Nonesuch release, Compass, out this past Tuesday, earns four stars from the Financial Times, which lauds Redman's "rigorous intellect and gritty edge ... while his saxophone entices with its mix of classical purity and multi-noted wails." The review cites the "extra excitement" that comes from the album's pioneering use of a double-trio format. The Evening Standard gives the album four stars as well, stating that Redman's "writing and playing is brilliantly lucid."

The Scripps Howard News Service gives four stars to Joshua Redman's new album, Compass. "For most of us, jazz is someone else's music," asserts the reviewer. "Those who want to give jazz an opportunity to be more than that should start with something such as Compass." Noting the atypical, multiple trio formats featured on the album, the review suggests that "aficionados might marvel at Redman's innovative recording technique ... What's more significant is that Compass is a tempting invitation to potential new fans." The LA Times states: "Even outside of the new configuration, Compass finds Redman and his band stretching out with flashes of unpredictability and raw emotion."

Joshua Redman calls Compass, his forthcoming album, "an expansion on, and an extension of, Back East," his acclaimed 2007 trio session. "And he's not wrong," says the BBC, which calls the album "a dazzling album of considerable artistry ... Compass is the sort of serious-minded album that gives jazz in 2009 a very good name." The Guardian and The Scotsman both give it four stars, with the latter calling it "an exciting and inventive disc" and "the most spontaneous-sounding of Redman's recordings." All About Jazz exclaims that the saxophonist "has produced the most singular album of his career so far," calling it Redman's "first undeniably colossal album."

Saxophonist Joshua Redman’s 2007 album Back East was his first recording as the leader of an acoustic sax/bass/drums trio. The seminal 1957 Way Out West by his hero Sonny Rollins provided a conceptual impetus for Redman’s album. Among other accolades, the New York Times called Back East, “the most agile and personal record of his career.” Going one step further on concepts from that album, Redman entered the studio with four friends and colleagues—Brian Blade (drums), Larry Grenadier (bass), Gregory Hutchinson (drums), and Reuben Rogers (bass)—who, with Redman, became a rotating, and intertwining, pair of trios. Together they recorded what became Redman’s new Nonesuch album, Compass, which will be released on January 13, 2009.

Bill Frisell begins an eight-set residency at Yoshi's Oakland tomorrow night with guitarist Russell Malone. The two performed together last night in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in what the Grand Rapids Press 3-1/2 star review describes as a "singular evening of comparing and contrasting electric-guitar styles." Frisell played a duo set of a different sort late last month with drummer Matt Wilson at the Monterey Jazz Festival, in what the All About Jazz reviewer names among his "personal highlights from the festival." Label mate Joshua Redman had opened the festival with "a rousing trio set, hearkening back to the Sonny Rollins' trio recordings from the late fifties."

Congratulations to Joshua Redman, who was awarded the 2008 Harvard Arts Medal at a ceremony last Thursday evening at the New College Theatre in Cambridge. The Medal honors a distinguished Harvard graduate or faculty member who has achieved excellence in the arts and made a contribution to education or the public good. Redman is the 14th Harvard Arts Medal recipient. Previous honorees include John Adams, Peter Sellars, Yo-Yo Ma, John Harbison, and John Updike.