Farewell Walter Dewey Redman
Downbeat
May 2009
By Kirk Silsbee
Some of the best-kept secrets in Southern California jazz are the guest intesives and concerts that Mark Masters presides over at the Claremont Colleges under the aegis of American Jazz Institute. He recasts the music of Jimmy Knepper, Clifford Brown, Gil Evans, Gary McFarland and others, featuring soloists like Tim Hagans and Gary Foster. If the concerts are geographically remote, we’re fortunate that Masters records them.
Masters can reinterpret composers or arrangers ably, but how does one pay adequate tribute to a quicksilver reed improviser like Dewey Redman in an orchestral setting? Masters features Oliver Lake as the prime solo voice amid a fine orchestra. The songs are almost all by Redman, who had more of an impact as a player than a writer. The result is an album that might not illuminate Redman as much as it places Lake in a rare orchestral setting. Lake’s singing, hard-edge alto beautifully contrasts the smoother horn voicings. That’s not a bad thing at all.
To his credit, Masters mostly restricts his writing to discreet swaths of voiced horn color. Lake turns in some of his most focused playing ever on a soulful “My One And Only Love,” reminding us of Redman’s affecting ballads. The African-esque “Sitatunga” prompts a bopish ensemble movement, over which Lake pops and wriggles expertly. Foster’s flute solos on “Love Is” and “Joie De Vivre” offer gorgeous silk to Lake’s fire.
Two improvised quartet pieces access Redman in a way that the orchestrated material doesn’t. Hagans and Lake dialog handily over Dave Carpenter’s bass and Peter Erskine’s protean drums. “Transits” is a Caribbean butt-shaker and “Adieu Mon Redman” is introspective and oblique. Peppery and moody, invigorating and thoughtful—that was Dewey Redman, and that’s this album.
