Links 5/17: Dewey Redman +
Dewey Redman died last year. [Wikipedia.] At that time, we wrote an obituary. Today is his birthday.
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One of the less satisfactory aspects of the art form known as "jazz" is how some of its greatest exponents are overlooked. Dewey was a mess: On top of being a country boy in the big city, he was an (ex-) junkie with a fragile ego. Despite any of these normal human fetters, he remains one of the very greatest tenor saxophonists to grace this strange music. The field is crowded--a partial listing of major tenors up to Dewey's debut in the late sixties would include Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Chu Berry, Don Byas, Ben Webster, Stan Getz, Paul Gonsalves, Wardell Gray, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, Arnett Cobb, Gene Ammons, Warne Marsh, John Coltrane, Johnny Griffin, Hank Mobley, Benny Golson, Charlie Rouse, Wayne Shorter, John Gilmore, Booker Ervin, Joe Henderson, Albert Ayler, and Pharoah Sanders.
It is truly infuriating that many annotators and players of this music would not include the great Dewey Redman on this list. Fuck all those motherfuckers. He was one of the most open channels to profundity we have ever had.
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Like his teacher Ornette Coleman, Dewey was most exciting when improvising free harmony with Charlie Haden playing bass. Here are several examples of the spectacular Redman/Haden euphony. The drummer is either Paul Motian or Ed Blackwell and the leader is either KJ or OC. (It is safe to say that Redman, Haden, or the drummers have never received a penny in royalties from these immortal recordings.)
Download deweyget_some_sleep.mp3
Download DEWEYLongTimeNoSee.mp3
LONG LIVE DEWEY REDMAN!
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In other news:
Wonderful Lee Konitz interview with Andy Hamilton. If only every older master jazz player could get interviewed like this! When this generation is gone, we will only have the records (and precious little text) to sort out what they were doing. Please, if we could only get the type of information Hamilton is getting from Konitz from Cedar Walton, Hank Jones, Barry Harris, Al Foster, Ron Carter, Frank Wess, Charles McPherson, George Coleman, Grady Tate, Sal Mosca, Sonny Dallas, Frank Strozier, Charles Tolliver, Stanley Cowell, Clark Terry, Roscoe Mitchell, Andrew Cyrille, Don Moye, and countless others...if you are a college musician looking for a academia-worthy topic, please interview your nearest elder jazz master on the music, NOW.
