Truth And Beauty

In what is going to be a more active year than recently for Joshua Redman, the gifted tenor sax player appears in a second new trio jazz release (following his own "Back East") in as many weeks. Now the format is sax, Hammond B3 (Sam Yahel) and drums (the wonderful Brian Blade) but the basic tenet is the same; less is more - more jazz from a paired down setting.

Sam Yahel is composer on most of the tracks ("Truth and Beauty", "Man O' War", "Bend the Leaves", "Saba", "Child Watching" and "Festinhas") and he continues with the inventiveness that he has shown on his earlier albums "Searchin'", "In the Blink of an Eye" and "Trio", all highly recommended, especially for the playing of Peter Bernstein (guitar). Notably, Brian Blade plays drums on the last two of these earlier albums, pointing to the long relationship and the accumulated understanding between the two musicians.

Joshua Redman replaced Peter Bernstein when the trio went on to produce "Yaya3" in 2002 and this same set-up featured as the core of Joshua Redman's successful album "Momentum", released in 2005. "Truth and Beauty is completed by the Ornette Coleman composition "Check Up", the Gil/Donato song "A Paz" and a take on Paul Simon's "Night Game" which emerges as one of the most successful tracks of album for its relative simplicity and knowable direction alongside the complexity of the Coleman and Yahel compositons.

Overall this is a winning continuation of a fine development of involving and subtle Hammond B3 based jazz and is highly recommended.