SEVEN AND ONE
OF LOVE
Dewey Redman
Look for the Black Star
Freedom : 1966

DR, tenor sax; Jym Young, piano; Donald Garrett, bass, clarinet; Eddie Moore, drums.

Though Dewey Redman continues to be an unsung musician, we sense a rising tide of appreciation. Perhaps the lack of recognition boils down to some of his greatest work not appearing under his own name; we’re thinking in particular of Old and New Dreams and Keith Jarrett’s American Quartet. Needless to say, Redman’s time in the spotlight is well overdue.

Here’s a couple from Redman’s little-known debut as a leader. The raucous “Seven and One” is a curious mix of post-bop heads, call and response vocalizing, and searing Ayerlite wails, all grounded by Redman’s passionate roots and blues. “Of Love” is an extraordinarily beautiful tune, blending heartfelt Lush Life-era Coltrane balladeering with the open-ended searching of the mid-period Coltrane quartet. If the support is at times a little lackluster, Redman — patient, thoughtful, resonant — shines throughout.

Once you’ve enjoyed these, we encourage you to check out Reman’s reissued solo disc from 1982, The Struggle Continues. Redman died two years ago this month.

Extra Special Thanks to longtime reader Bart White for providing us with these rare tracks to share with everyone. Head to the comments to give him your thanks and let him know what you think of the music.

RUSHOUR
BROKEN SHADOWS
Old and New Dreams
Playing
ECM : 1980

Dewey Redman, tenor sax, musette; Don Cherry, trumpet; Charlie Haden, bass; Ed Blackwell, drums.

Is it possible this group is underappreciated? That instead of being recognized as a jazz super-ensemble, they are viewed more as an Ornette Coleman cover band? Though all bandmembers have strong ties to Coleman, and though Old and New Dreams drew on the Ornette songbook for much of their irregularly recorded life, they deserve our full attention as an organic, living, breathing, swanging thing-unto-itself.

“Rushour” is a Redman original, and he opens it with extreme brio. Cherry takes a slower tack, but the support is relentless. Blackwell handles the final solo and syncopates beautifully. Ornette’s “Broken Shadows” is given a superbly emotional reading, with some great musette from Redman; Haden’s bass is captured unbelievably well, particularly for a live date. But everybody contributes stunning playing. We cite one of our favorite records reviews of recent years: Old and New Dreams manage to MAKE. EACH. PART. AS. IMPORTANT. AS. THE. OTHER. PART. There is no “backdrop”; there is nothing “underneath.”

Here’s Ed Blackwell, who was interviewed by Robert Palmer for a March 1980 Old and New Dreams gig in New York (opening act: Arthur Blythe): “I know efforts I do individually with other people are not as strong as the feeling I have with this group. We need to have reunions, get back together for at least three or four months of the year. But you know, when I leave these cats to do my own projects, the love lasts me the rest of the year.” We know something of how he feels.

DR, musette; Malachi Favors, bass; Ed Blackwell drums.

(IF THE) MISFITS (WEAR IT)
Keith Jarrett
Fort Yawuh
Impulse : 1973Â [buy]

KJ, piano, soprano sax; Dewey Redman, tenor sax; Charlie Haden, bass; Paul Motian, drums; Danny Johnson, percussion.

SUNLANDING
Dewey Redman
The Ear of the Behearer
Impulse : 1974 [buy]

DR, alto sax; Ted Daniel, trumpet; Jane Robertson, cello; Sirone, bass; Eddie Moore, drums, Danny Johnson, percussion.

QOW
Dewey Redman
Coincide
Impulse : 1975

DR, tenor sax; Sirone, bass; Eddie Moore, drums.

RIP, Dewey Redman.

We donâ??t have a whole lot to add to the excellent obits that have been posted elsewhere; see the entry below for several links. But we wanted to pay tribute to a wonderful musician whose contributions to jazz have been woefully underplayed. Dewey Redman boasts an impressive resume including important stints with Ornette Coleman and Keith Jarrett. And many of his contributions as leader are no less remarkable.Â

â??Tarikâ? comes from his second release under his own name. This classic BYG session was overlooked at the time, but has grown in esteem over the years thanks to reissues and its inclusion on Thurston Moore and Byron Coleyâ??s excellent Jazzactuel box set back in 2000. The title track showcases Deweyâ??s superb musette playing. It creates a distinctly Eastern vibe, buzzing and prayerful in its concentrated execution.

Redman was part of one the great (if under-hyped) groups of the 1970s, Keith Jarrett’s so-called American quartet. For much more on this crew, see Do the Math. The track here, from the live Fort Yawuh, features a typically tremendous Redman statement on tenor.

The Impulse sessions Redman did in the mid ’70s are also prime material. Ear is an incredibly varied session, including everything from textural songs that slowly unpeel their layers, to fast, free-bop-like blitzes, to soulfully modulated blues vamps. Weâ??ve selected the brief but powerful “Sunlanding.”

Recorded the following year for the Coincide album, â??QOWâ? features a stripped-down trio charging through a rollicking free funk tune. Itâ??s one of the great – and rarely discussed – examples of the genre. Fans of Dogon A.D. wonâ??t want to miss this.

* * * * * * *

Here’s a brief personal reminiscence about Dewey from our friend Harold Yen:

The only time I met Dewey Redman was in the mid-90s at a small avant-garde jazz venue in Berkeley, California. It was just on the heels of his sonâ??s meteoric rise from promising Yale law student to young lion phenom, and all the press at the time made hay of the fact that his father, whom he didnâ??t know growing up, was also a jazz musician. That night Dewey cheekily referenced this when he introduced himself to the audience as â??Joshua Redmanâ??s father.â?

After the gig, a group of us aspiring musicians approached him and I asked him about his signature tone. He took a deep breath and put my hand on his belly as he exhaled. It stayed hard as a rock. â??It all comes from the diaphram,â? he said. Dewey once said in an interview, â??If you got the technique and I got a good sound, Iâ??ll beat you every time. You can play a thousand notes and I can play one note and wipe you out.â?

Three weeks ago, at Central Parkâ??s Summerstage festival, Dewey wiped us out for the last time. The occasion was the somewhat dubious comeback gig of Asha Puthli, whose ethereal vocals on Ornette Colemanâ??s Science Fiction album have become stuff of legend. But, Ashaâ??s bizarre persona, awkward banter and slicked-out funk/r&b backing band made the show embarrassingly amateurish. By the time she introduced her special guest, the crowd had dwindled from 600 to about 60.

But magic happened when Dewey took the stage and delivered a two minute unaccompanied introduction to Harold Arlenâ??s standard, “Out of This World.” His tone was as beautiful as ever â?? earthy, yearning and mercurial. It was the sound of humanity, wiping out the synthisizers and over-amplified guitars. It was a sound that most of the remaining audience had likely never heard. But they responded instinctually to his playing by making more noise for him than they had all day. I noticed off-stage, hidden in the shadows, Ornette himself sitting and listening. It made me feel so good to see the two of them together. They had come a long way, two childhood friends from Fort Worth. Deweyâ??s beautiful music and generous spirit will be missed.

* * * * * * *

Some quotes from Dewey Redman:

â??The heart of the matter is sound. No matter what Iâ??m playing or how Iâ??m playing, I always strive for a good sound. Technique is meaningless without a good sound.â?

â??My ambition is not to be recognizable and this is not easy. I would like to play music in whatever style I choose and play it well. Each time that I play, I want to do it differently but well. Itâ??s easy to play favorably when one plays in a certain style, in a single way, but it is not so simple to play 50 different styles and be good in each of those styles.â?

“I’ve never read a review where the guy seemed to know what I was trying to do. It’s always that I use some kind of funny effect or a growl or holler. But it’s not a fluke, it’s something that I studied, and I have never heard anybody else do that.” [on vocalizing through his horn]

“Music is the most powerful force I know; it’s the only force that can make you cry, laugh, be happy, dance, fuck, fight. It can do strange things to people. Music is the only pure thing that’s left because everything else is so corrupted, and being a Black jazz musician in America is hardly a lucrative thing. I’m happier when I’m playing than when I’m walking to the bank, and I’m happy doing that, too. But the two don’t hardly go hand in hand.”

“I never think of it as making a living, really – and you have to face that fact. I spend most of my time thinking about music, and I believe that if you have faith in music, if you’re sincere and honest about what you’re doing, you’ll be provided for. And so far, it has worked out.”

& & & & & & &

Itâ??s been exciting to see all the amazing lists generated by Dave Douglasâ??s comments about jazz in the 70s and 80s and Ethan Iversonâ??s list of personal favorites. Do yourself a favor and check ‘em out, along with the Bad Plus’ follow-up posts, now in progress.

ADDED LATER, FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION AND EASY BROWSABILITY:
Please do not sleep on some rich and amazing contributions to the ’73-’90 jazz record confab from the following–
Steve Smith;
Darcy James Argue;
godoggo;
Pat Donaher;
David Ryshpan;
Ethan Iverson & Co., volume 1;
Ethan Iverson & Co., volume 2;
Ethan Iverson & Co., volume 3

Weâ??d like to thrown our own hat in the ring, in a limited way. We hope our recent Muhal Abrams and Marion Brown entries are examples of more great ’70s and ’80s jazz. And weâ??d like to make it plain that we think jazz in the 1970s was every bit as good as jazz in the 1960s. It may not have been as (outwardly) culturally significant, and many of the gems might have been released on tiny labels, but title-for-title the decade holds its own. And for sheer variety, itâ??s pretty much unbeatable. See this list, a decade’s worth of favorites from an Italian fan, writer, and obsessive list-maker, to get the wide view.

As for the 1980s, well, like the rest of music during that decade, many otherwise fine jazz recordings suffered from poor production choices that now sound hopelessly dated. But there are still more stellar recordings out there than most people might recognize. Stay tuned and over the next year weâ??ll be throwing out plenty of examples so you can decide for yourself.

In the meantime, and despite the formal closing of the invitational, here are a few key artists and albums from the ’70s and ’80s that havenâ??t turned up on the other lists (so far). They’re more examples of the incredibly diverse and rich offerings of the period:Â

Air â?? Lore; Albert Mangelsdorff; Alexander von Schlippenbach; Alice Coltrane – Transfiguration; Amina Claudine Meyers; AMM; Anthony Davis; Arthur Blythe â?? Fulton Street Breakdown and Bush Baby; Bennie Maupin â?? Jewel in the Lotus; Bill Dixon â?? Considerations I; Billy Bang; Butch Morris â?? Dust to Dust; Charles Gayle â?? Touching on Trane; Don Cherry – Brown Rice and Relativity Suite; George Lewis â?? Homage to Charles Parker; Globe Unity Orchestra; Henry Threadgill â?? Rag Bush and All; Herbie Hancock â?? Sextant; Horace Tapscott â?? The Dark Tree; Larry Young â?? Lawrence of Newark; Lester Bowie â?? The Fifth Power; Marilyn Crispell; Michelle Rosewoman – Quintessence; Miles Davis – every single thing he recorded until his retirement in 1975; Randy Weston; The Revolutionary Ensemble; Ronald Shannon Jackson â?? Mandance; Rova Saxophone Quartet; Sam Rivers â?? Crystals and Hues; Sonny Sharrock â?? Guitar, Seize the Rainbow, and Ask the Ages; Sun Ra â?? Lanquidity, St. Louis Blues, and Disco 3000.

–Apologies if some of these were listed elsewhere already, or miss the date cut-offs.

–And what are some of your favorite jazz titles from the 70s and 80s?