Dewey Redman R.I.P.

The Jarrett group on Impulse (esp. "Everything That Lives Laments") and ECM (esp. Survivors Suite) urgent and key listening...

...as is Ornette's Complete Science Fiction Sessions of which everyone should legally obliged to own a copy...and New York Is Now! and Crisis! (somebody reissue the latter, ditto Cherry's Relativity Suite)...

...and of course he was on both Escalator Over The Hill and the first and second Haden LMO albums (his coruscating solo on "Song For Che" on Liberation Music Orchestra). Old & New Dreams kept a flame burning, but The Struggle Continues (ECM, 1982) is the best work under his own name, though Tarik (BYG, 1969) is great semi-skronk stuff too.

And I can't offhand recall the album on which it appears, but he did a gorgeous take on "Alone Again (Naturally)" in the '80s...

RIP.

While not an obit, this 2003 article from Fort Worth Weekly is a pretty good summing up of his life and career. I found it while trying to find out who the pianist is on Look for the Black Star, which KCR is playing right now.

Here are a couple of paragraphs:

At Bop City, Redman had his first meeting with the most influential saxophonist of his generation, John Coltrane. Although they never played together, Redman would drop by to discuss music whenever Trane was in San Francisco. “I wanted him to tell me what to study, but all he’d say was ‘practice,’” said Redman. “I was pissed off, but he taught me that you have to get it yourself; no one else can teach you.” He was also impressed by the older musician’s humility. “I was a middleweight, not a heavyweight,” he said, “but I had an ego. Coltrane had no ego. He showed me that if you can play, someone will tell you; you don’t need to brag.”

During his San Francisco sojourn, Redman recorded his first album as a leader, Look for the Black Star, with drummer Eddie Moore (who worked frequently with Redman until his death in 1999) and sometime Coltrane sideman Donald Garrett on bass and clarinet. While some listeners believe the album’s title has racial or spiritual significance, Redman says it came from “a discussion about Indian ladies. The ones with the red star on their foreheads are married, so you have to look for the ones with the black star.”

There's a pretty good obit on the Bad Plus blog here.

RIP.

Crisis really is a great album. I have no idea why the new Impulse has not reissed their two Ornettes. Doesn't make any sense. Especially considering that they *have* reissued seemingly less "accessible" stuff like Cecil Taylor and whatnot. oh well. Anyway, RIP Dewey. Thanks for the music.

been listening to a lot of his stuff in recent days, Living On The Edge, the incredible one one with Cecil and Elvin Jones, Old and New Dreams, The Struggle Continues ... can't even remember the titles of everything I've been listening to but him and his bands with Cherry and Haden and so on was the absolute shit!