Joshua Redman’s ‘supergroup’ confirms status with its new album

The album was released last month, but because Joshua Redman’s ‘supergroup’ will be visiting the Amsterdam Concertgebouw next week, it may still get some attention. Saxophonist Joshua Redman, pianist Brad Mehldau, bassist Christian McBride and drummer Brian Blade form a dream quartet in contemporary jazz. LongGone is their third album, filled with compositions by Redman. It is immediately delicious when Redman in Long Gone turns off the melody that the rest dive in and play around with so much inventiveness that you can almost envision the grins on their faces in the studio.

What makes this new album even better than the previous one, RoundAgain (2020) is the closing track, a live piece from 2007, Rejoice. Gospel and jazz merge beautifully in this more than 12 minutes long piece in which all four musicians claim their space to improvise. The number was already on MoodSwing from 1994, the first album that Joshua Redman released with these men. At that time, all four of them still had to make a name for themselves in the jazz world.