Like an elder statesman who no longer has to prove anything to anyone, tenor saxophonist Dewey Redman played a coolly understated set Tuesday night at the Jazz Showcase. With the exception of some incendiary blues playing, this was jazz improvisation stripped to its essence, with one relatively simple riff followed by another.
And though Redman offered occasional flashes of bebop-tinged virtuosity and fleeting gestures of abstract experimentation, for the most part he hinted at these idioms without delving into them very deeply. The result was a curiously dichotomous show, which veered from passages of bona fide emotional fervor to moments that sounded surprisingly noncommittal.
At his best, Redman recalled his famously venturesome reed work with Ornette Coleman, Charlie Haden and Keith Jarrett, among others, unreeling fleet figures and high-register dissonance that energized the proceedings. In these instances, Redman’s rhythm players supported him robustly, with drummer Matt Wilson producing thunderous statements, pianist Barney McCall laying on fat chord clusters and bassist John Menegon providing great surges of energy.
But when Redman reduced his solos to the most basic eighth- and quarter-note patterns–with plenty of space between phrases–his band quickly settled into near rhythmic stasis. At these junctures, as in the ballad “The Very Thought of You,” the music-making became so spare and so lacking in forward motion as to make one wonder precisely what this band was trying to achieve.
Yet just when one was ready to give up on the back-to-basics playing, Redman and friends turned up the temperature with a lowdown blues, the tenorist’s unabashedly rough-hewn tone making matters interesting once again. Here was authentic, unvarnished Southern blues playing of the most forthright kind.
Among Redman’s sidemen, none proved more intriguing, nor more frustrating, than Wilson. At his most convincing, Wilson toyed with meter, rhythm and tempo as only an adept timekeeper could. Lingering on one beat before rushing ahead, he affirmed his status as one of the more promising young jazz drummers.
Yet when Wilson tapped out rudimentary, four-square rhythms, he tested one’s patience. The relentlessly repeated, remarkably simplistic motifs quickly wore out their welcome.
Still, Redman and the band have a weeklong engagement in which to add detail, sonic depth and rhythmic drive. Here’s hoping they do so.
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The Dewey Redman Quartet plays through Sunday at the Jazz Showcase, 59 W. Grand Ave.; $20; 312-670-2473.
