'where are we' Out September 15 On Blue Note Records

From Blue Note Records:

Acclaimed saxophonist Joshua Redman has announced a September 15 release date for his stunning Blue Note debut where are we. One of his most compelling albums to date, where are we is a musical journey across the United States of America that also marks Redman’s first-ever vocal album with the dynamic young singer Gabrielle Cavassa featured throughout along with a brilliant band comprised of pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Joe Sanders, and drummer Brian Blade.

where are we is available for pre-order now on Blue Note Store exclusive color vinyl, black vinyl, CD, and digital download. Listen to the lead single “Chicago Blues”—a mash-up of Count Basie’s “Goin’ to Chicago” with Sufjan Stevens’ “Chicago”—featuring vibraphonist Joel Ross. Redman will be touring the project across the U.S. and Europe following the album’s release.

Redman notes that “the surface concept of where are we is rather simple: each of the songs on the album is about, or at least makes reference to, a specific geographical location (city or state or region) in the United States: Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Streets of Philadelphia,’ Count Basie’s ‘Going To Chicago,’ Rodgers & Hart’s ‘Manhattan,’ John Coltrane’s ‘Alabama,’ etc… So, on one level, this is an album ‘about’ America — at once a celebration and a critique. But it is also, to varying degrees, a ballads album, a standards album, an album of romantic longing, an album of social reflection, an album of melodic invention, an album of improvisational adventure, an album of mashups, perhaps even a tribute album of sorts.”

For added perspective, Redman invited four other friends to contribute to the portraits of their native cities: guitarists Kurt Rosenwinkel (“Streets of Philadelphia”) and Peter Bernstein (“Manhattan”), trumpeter Nicholas Payton (“Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?”), and Ross (“Chicago Blues”). Conceived and planned during the pandemic lockdown, Redman says “it was a dream come true to finally have a chance to connect Aaron, Joe, and Brian — three of the most sublimely lyrical and deeply grooving musicians on the planet, who, somehow, had never before played together as a rhythm section. And it was a transformative experience to collaborate with Gabrielle — a vocalist of uncommon style, sincerity, and soul. This was my first time ever recording with a singer on one of my own projects; and I relished the challenge of discovering and inhabiting new musical roles for myself — not only as a featured soloist and ‘lead,’ but also as supportive accompanist and interlocutor.”

“The magic of this particular gathering of musicians,” Redman continues, “was that we were able to come together from points afar, to converge (physically and creatively) in a particular place at a particular time; and to embrace, with fullest imagination and without slightest reservation, the ethic of ‘serving the songs.’ In this sense, where are we is perhaps above all a meditation on the power and importance of place — the unique human beauty created when we locate ourselves in shared physical spaces together with others; the loss, anomie, and angst suffered when we divide ourselves unnaturally and unjustly apart.”

The track listing for where are we is as follows:

Side A

  1. After Minneapolis (face toward mo[u]rning)

Lyrics written by Joshua Redman, Music written by Joshua Redman and Woodie Guthrie

  1. Streets Of Philadelphia

Written by Bruce Springsteen

  1. Chicago Blues

Written by Count Basie, James Rushing, Sufjan Stevens

Side B

  1. Baltimore

Written by Gabriel Kahane

  1. By The Time I Get To Phoenix

Written by Jimmy Webb

 

Side C

  1. Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?

Written by Eddie DeLange and Louis Alter

  1. Manhattan

Written by Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers

  1. My Heart In San Francisco (Holiday)

Written by Joshua Redman, Douglass Cross, George Cory, Thelonious Monk

  1. That’s New England

Written by Joshua Redman, Charles Ives, James Sinclair

Side D

  1. Alabama (intro)

Written by John Coltrane

  1. Stars Fell On Alabama

Written by Frank S. Perkins and Mitchell Parish

  1. Alabama

Written by John Coltrane

  1. Where Are You?

Written by Jimmy McHugh, Harold Adamson

JOSHUA REDMAN SIGNS TO BLUE NOTE RECORDS ACCLAIMED SAXOPHONIST SET TO RELEASE DEBUT ALBUM FOR LEGENDARY JAZZ LABEL THIS FALL

Saxophonist Joshua Redman, one of the most acclaimed and charismatic jazz artists to have emerged in the past 30 years, has signed to Blue Note Records, the legendary label and standard bearer of The Finest In Jazz Since 1939. Redman will release his Blue Note debut where are we this Fall and will be touring the project across the United States and Europe following the album’s release. Stay tuned to joshuaredman.com/tour for touring updates.

“I am so deeply honored and just flat-out thrilled to be joining the Blue Note family,” says Redman. “Blue Note albums have forever been an essential part of my musical (and spiritual) life — since well before I realized I even had one! I look forward, with equal parts gratitude and giddiness, to embarking on this new phase in my recording journey, along with one of the greatest labels of all time.”

 “Over the last three decades, Joshua Redman has set the bar for courageous musical innovation and soulful expression,” says Blue Note President Don Was. “He is the living embodiment of the Blue Note ethos and it’s a dream come true to welcome him to the label.”

* * *

Born in Berkeley, California, Redman is the son of legendary saxophonist Dewey Redman and dancer Renee Shedroff. He was exposed at an early age to a variety of musics (jazz, classical, rock, soul, Indian, Indonesian, Middle Eastern, African) and instruments (recorder, piano, guitar, gatham, gamelan), and began playing clarinet at age nine before switching to what became his primary instrument, the tenor saxophone, one year later. The early influences of John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Cannonball Adderley, and his father—as well as The Beatles, Aretha Franklin, the Temptations, Earth, Wind and Fire, Prince, The Police, and Led Zeppelin—drew Joshua more deeply into music. But although he loved playing the saxophone, academics were always his priority and he never seriously considered becoming a professional musician.

In 1991 Redman graduated from Harvard College summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in Social Studies. He had already been accepted by Yale Law School, but deferred entrance for what he believed was only going to be one year. Some of his musician friends had recently relocated to Brooklyn, and they were looking for another housemate to help with the rent. Redman accepted their invitation to move in, and almost immediately he found himself immersed in the New York jazz scene. He began jamming and gigging regularly with some of the leading jazz musicians of his generation: Peter Bernstein, Larry Goldings, Kevin Hays, Roy Hargrove, Geoff Keezer, Leon Parker, Jorge Rossy, and Mark Turner, among others. In November of that year, five months after moving to New York, Redman won the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Competition. This was only one of the more visible highlights from a year that saw Redman beginning to tour and record with jazz masters such as his father, Jack DeJohnette, Charlie Haden, Elvin Jones, Joe Lovano, Pat Metheny, Paul Motian, and Clark Terry.

Now fully committed to a life in music, Redman was quickly signed by Warner Bros. Records and issued his self-titled debut album in the spring of 1993, which subsequently earned Redman his first GRAMMY nomination. That fall saw the release of Wish, where Joshua was joined by the all-star cast of Pat Metheny, Charlie Haden, and Billy Higgins. MoodSwing followed in 1994 and introduced his first permanent band, which included three other young musicians who have gone on to become some of the most important and influential artists in modern jazz: pianist Brad Mehldau, bassist Christian McBride, and drummer Brian Blade.

Redman continued to release a series of celebrated recordings including Freedom in the Groove, Timeless Tales (for Changing Times), and Beyond with a variety of different band line-ups, establishing himself as one of the music’s most consistent and successful bandleaders. An affiliation with Nonesuch Records began in 2005 with the album Momentum and saw the release of a wide range of projects including the duo album Nearness with Mehldau, The Bad Plus Joshua Redman, Still Dreaming, and the reunion of his quartet with Mehldau, McBride, and Blade on RoundAgain and LongGone.

Redman was a founding member of the SFJAZZ Collective and has recorded and performed with musicians including Ray Brown, Dave Brubeck, Chick Corea, The Dave Matthews Band, Bill Frisell, Herbie Hancock, Roy Haynes, Milt Jackson, Quincy Jones, Big Daddy Kane, B.B. King, The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, DJ Logic, Yo Yo Ma, Branford Marsalis, John Medeski, Marcus Miller, MeShell Ndegeocello, Nicholas Payton, Simon Rattle, Dianne Reeves, The Rolling Stones, The Roots, Kurt Rosenwinkel, John Scofield, Toots Thielemans, McCoy Tyner, Cedar Walton, Stevie Wonder, and many more. Redman has been nominated for ten GRAMMY Awards and has garnered top honors in critics and readers polls of DownBeat, Rolling Stone, and more. He wrote and performed the music for Louis Malle’s final film Vanya on 42nd Street and is both seen and heard in the Robert Altman film Kansas City.

Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride & Brian Blade Return With 'LongGone,' Available Now.

The members of the original, legendary 1990s Joshua Redman Quartet – Joshua Redman (saxophone), Brad Mehldau (piano), Christian McBride (bass), and Brian Blade (drums) – reunited twenty-six years after their 1994 debut album, MoodSwing, to record RoundAgain in 2020. They followed up that acclaimed release with LongGone in 2022, featuring original Redman compositions from the RoundAgain recording sessions, plus a live performance of the MoodSwing track “Rejoice,” captured by SFJAZZ at the San Francisco Jazz Festival.

 "Musical soulmates reunite to stunning effect," the Guardian exclaims, naming LongGone its Jazz Album of the Month.

 "These two releases [RoundAgain and LongGone] pose the question of whether there has ever been such a reunion of elevated pedigree in the jazz oeuvre," says Glide magazine: "John Coltrane’s come-and-go with Miles Davis’ in the Sixties comes to mind, but this four-way regrouping would appear to be a phenomenon unto itself." “T record is very much akin to the occasion wherein old friends meet up again after a prolonged interval apart and … find out that the traits that first brought them together not only remain in plentiful supply but have grown all the more abiding with the passage of time.”

RoundAgain, the group’s first recording since 1994’s MoodSwing, debuted at No. 1 on the Current Traditional Jazz Albums chart in the US and at No. 1 on the Jazz & Blues chart in the UK. The album received two Grammy nominations. NPR called it “a flawless effort,” stating that the four musicians have “only gotten better in that time” and are each “at the very top of his game now.”

 “Musicians with a scary level of talent playing into the moment,” says the New York Times. “The blend of outside influences into a consensual jazz language, the polyrhythmic play, the scholarly bravado: All those things felt fresh for these musicians in the 1990s ... There’s something undeniable—consoling, even—about hearing them remain true to it today.”

Redman says of his first group as a bandleader, which was together for approximately a year and a half: “I realized almost immediately that this band wouldn’t stay together for very long. They were without a doubt, for our generation, among the most accomplished and innovative on their respective instruments. I knew better than anyone else just how incredibly lucky I was to have even that short time with them.”