Walking Shadows, Joshua Redman’s first recording to include an orchestral ensemble, is out now. Its core ensemble is a quartet featuring Brad Mehldau, who produced the album, Larry Grenadier, and Brian Blade. Walking Shadows includes original tunes from both Redman and Mehldau along with works by a wide range of composers, like John Mayer and Pino Palladino, Kern and Hammerstein, and Lennon and McCartney. The album is "never less than exceptionally beautiful," exclaims Buffalo News, an "unmitigated triumph ... one of the jazz discs of the year." MusicOMH concurs, suggesting this "gorgeous" album "will prove to be one of the year’s most satisfying jazz listens."
Joshua Redman’s new album, Walking Shadows, is out today. The album, comprising 12 ballads, is Redman’s first recording to include an orchestral ensemble, which plays on many of the tracks. It was produced by Redman’s friend and frequent collaborator Brad Mehldau. The record's core ensemble is a quartet featuring Mehldau, Larry Grenadier, and Brian Blade—all frequent collaborators of Redman’s over the years. Dan Coleman conducts on the orchestral tracks. Walking Shadows includes original tunes from both Redman and Mehldau along with works by a wide range of composers such as John Mayer and Pino Palladino, Kern and Hammerstein, and Lennon and McCartney. Orchestral arrangements are by Mehldau, Coleman, and composer Patrick Zimmerli.
Redman first worked with Mehldau and Blade in Redman’s mid-1990s quartet and they have been friends and frequent collaborators ever since. Redman was a featured soloist on Mehldau’s Jon Brion–produced 2010 orchestral album, Highway Rider. Walking Shadows is the first of Redman’s records to be produced by Mehldau. Redman says: “I couldn’t be more delighted to have the opportunity to do a ballads record with strings, with Brad producing, and my other great friends and collaborators all involved. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time.”
In a field that has historically been a challenge for some, that of a saxophone jazz album featuring strings, such is not the case for Walking Shadows, asserts the Buffalo News.
The album "is sometimes exquisite and never less than exceptionally beautiful," exclaims Buffalo News reviewer Jeff Simon. "[I]t’s Redman’s purity as a player and his canniness at picking the repertoire here that make this one of the best of its kind in a very long time."
That repertoire includes "jazz standards on the highest possible level" and "modern standards only a fool would argue with," says Simon. "But most impressive of all, Redman and Mehldau’s originals aren’t at all out of place in such Parnassian compositional company."
Simon calls the resulting album an "unmitigated triumph ... One of the jazz discs of the year, to be sure, by year’s end." Read the complete review at buffalonews.com.
---
Over in the UK, the album earns four stars from the Scotsman and from MusicOMH.
Walking Shadows is "an album in which current musical prodigies take on some of the greatest musicians who ever lived ... the clean, tight, sophisticated product of an all-star cast," says MusicOMH reviewer Jordan Mainzer. "Walking Shadows is probably the best contemporary interpretation of these songs you’ll hear."
This "gorgeous" album, Mainzer concludes, "will prove to be one of the year’s most satisfying jazz listens."
Read the four-star review at musicomh.com.
---
To pick up a copy of Walking Shadows, head to your local music retailer or find it online at iTunes, Amazon, and the Nonesuch Store, where CD orders include a download of the complete album at checkout and the album is also available to purchase as MP3 and FLAC files. And check out Redman's newly revamped website at joshuaredman.com.
- Log in to post comments
