Search - Dewey Redman, Joshua Redman :: African Venus

Great Jazz Encounter

Giordano Bruno | Wherever I am, I am. | 10/05/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The late Dewey Redman spent very little time with his son Joshua, who started his jazz development at Berkeley High School. It's interesting to consider the dynamics of this collaboration: the duet cuts are by far the most exciting, and Dewey seems to be stretching his improvisational energy to the maximum, either to compete with or to encourage his son. Tenor sax duets have produced outstanding jazz before. My favorite live-session recordings of all time are of Wardell Gray and Dexter Gordon (The Hunt, The Chase). Dewey and Joshua don't interpenetrate each other's improv like that; they just take turns answering each other's solos, but they have different things to say. The only track on the album that falls short is the first, the title track, on which Dewey plays a musette of some sort without much skill."