Holy cow, folks: The members of the original JOSHUA REDMAN QUARTET, Redman (saxophone), BRAD MEHLDAU (piano), CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE (bass), and BRIAN BLADE (drums), are not only back together, they’ve released a new album, ROUNDAGAIN, in-stock NOW at Horizon Records and in our webstore. This is the group’s first recording since 1994’s MoodSwing, and the album 
features seven newly composed songs: three from Redman, two from Mehldau, and one each from McBride and Blade.
When Redman released MoodSwing in 1994, his name was becoming synonymous with a kind of renewed purpose in jazz after a decade of Neo-Classicism: a drive to freshen, to expand, to nudge past the bounds of traditionalism while holding on to its code of standards. History was still the foundation, but it was no longer the main guide.
The album’s quartet was an all-star team of young, like-minded stars to be, all in their early-to-mid 20s. This was Mr. Redman’s first consistent band as a leader, and it performed together for about a year and a half in the mid-1990s. It became a mutually reinforcing support system, inching each member up the ladder toward jazz prominence.
“I realized almost immediately that this band wouldn’t stay together for very long,” Redman says of his first band. ”They were without a doubt, for our generation, among the most accomplished and innovative on their respective instruments. They were already all in such high demand—everyone wanted to play with them! And they all had such strong and charismatic musical personalities—destined to start soon pursuing their own independent visions. I knew better than anyone else just how incredibly lucky I was to have even that short time with them.”
In the intervening decades, each has played with one or more of the others on various occasions, but all four had never properly reunited. “I knew it would happen, but I didn’t know when,” Redman admits. “We were all so busy, and we needed the space, both in our schedules and in our creative development.”
“We would have done it ten years ago if it were up to me,” Mehldau says. “Josh, Christian, and Brian are all my heroes. It’s like playing with The Avengers.”
Blade adds, “This band is like a turntable where the stylus was lifted but the turntable is still spinning. We just had to drop the needle, and there we were with all of the information we had gathered. It has gotten deeper because of life itself, and because Joshua, Brad, and Christian plumb the depths every day.”
“These guys have grown exponentially,” McBride insists. “They are super-monsters now, and playing with them gave me a hard look at myself. And when you’re intimate creating art, even if you don’t play together for twenty years, you only need two bars to realize what the feeling is about, because the feeling never leaves.”
We’re thrilled to say that RoundAgain is in-stock (and on heavy rotation) at Horizon Records now, along with their classic first LP, MoodSwing. Drop by or pick up a copy at our webstore right HERE.
