Joshua Redman 3x3 plays Ellington, Shorter, and Monk

The charismatic jazz saxophonist plays the music of three giants of jazz. Redman’s new 3×3 project emerged in part from his COVID-19 pandemic experience. Literally on his way to the airport for a three-week tour of Europe when the world shut down in March 2020, the saxophonist found himself in the ­unprecedented situation of not being able to make music with another human being for over six months.
 
“When I finally started getting together occasionally with folks for outdoor jam sessions,” he recalls, “the approach was predictably casual: ‘Let’s just play some tunes.’ Naturally, a lot of the tunes that were called were ones written by Duke, Monk, or Wayne.” He views the canonical contributions of these musical masters as key-way stations in his own artistic development. “The beauty and genius of Duke, Monk, and Wayne is that their compositions beg no ­‘reinvention.’ They are so cogent and complete and yet so broadly malleable and interpretable just as they are . Of course, I’m not promising I won’t throw in a few of my own originals or original arrangements from time to time. It’s jazz. It’s improvisation. We go with the flow!”