Players:

Joshua Redman (tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone), Brian Mehldau (piano), Christian McBride (bass), Brian Blade (drums)

longgone

The members of the legendary original 1990s Joshua Redman Quartet—Joshua Redman (saxophone), Brad Mehldau (piano), Christian McBride (bass), and Brian Blade (drums)—reunited after twenty-six years after their 1994 debut album, MoodSwing, for 2020’s RoundAgain; they return now with LongGone, out now. The new album features original Redman compositions from the RoundAgain recording sessions, plus a live performance of the MoodSwing track “Rejoice,” captured by SFJAZZ at the San Francisco Jazz Festival.

"Musical soulmates reunite to stunning effect," the Guardian exclaims, naming LongGone its Jazz Album of the Month.

"These two releases [RoundAgain and LongGone] pose the question of whether there has ever been such a reunion of elevated pedigree in the jazz oeuvre," says Glide magazine: "John Coltrane’s come-and-go with Miles Davis’ in the Sixties comes to mind, but this four-way regrouping would appear to be a phenomenon unto itself." “T record is very much akin to the occasion wherein old friends meet up again after a prolonged interval apart and … find out that the traits that first brought them together not only remain in plentiful supply but have grown all the more abiding with the passage of time.”

“Musicians with a scary level of talent playing into the moment,” says the New York Times. “The blend of outside influences into a consensual jazz language, the polyrhythmic play, the scholarly bravado: All those things felt fresh for these musicians in the 1990s ... There’s something undeniable—consoling, even—about hearing them remain true to it today.”

Redman says of his first group as a bandleader, which was together for approximately a year and a half: “I realized almost immediately that this band wouldn’t stay together for very long. They were without a doubt, for our generation, among the most accomplished and innovative on their respective instruments. I knew better than anyone else just how incredibly lucky I was to have even that short time with them.” 