Joshua Redman: Still Dreaming

For his most recent project, Joshua Redman was inspired by the band Old and New Dreams, which featured legendary Ornette Coleman collaborators cornetist Don Cherry, bassist Charlie Haden, drummer Ed Blackwell, and Joshua’s father, Dewey Redman on reeds. The Still Dreaming ensemble pays tribute to their inspiration without recreating their sound, projecting an intimate beauty that honors the honest artistic vision that was Old and New Dreams.

As Redman told NPR’s Jazz Night in America: “Each of us has a kind of special relationship to the corresponding instrumentalist in Old and New Dreams.” Redman told the Boston Globe that Old and New Dreams “were able to play very free, and at times abstract, thorny music. But at the same time there was a folk quality — whether a connection to the blues, or with African music, or with very powerful, simple melodies. Their music had a vulnerability and a poignant lyricism. That balance was something very special.” He continued, “It’s not our mission to go back and rediscover some Golden Age. I’m hoping this is a band that has a lot of future ahead.”