For The Show's Sam Dingman, a core skill in his job is talking to people, and he often thinks about how he does it. But Dingman asks “how does he do that?!” of how jazz musicians are able to improvise. He spoke more about it with Joshua Redman, a Grammy-nominated saxophonist.
Redman is playing with his band to the Musical Instrument Museum at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 12.
Full conversation
JOSHUA REDMAN: When we have conversations with people, they tend to have their own natural narrative arcs, right. There's a logic and there's a flow to them. But if it's a really good conversation, we're not thinking about, you know, the themes of the conversation and how we're like, you know, elaborating on them. We're not, we're not, we're not stepping outside of that.
At least, I don't think most people do when they, when they speak with other people, you know. It's a natural process like communicating with someone else, using the same language and telling your story and listening to their story. The more that musical improvisation feels like that, the more successful I think I'm gonna be in having some sort of organic logic to my improvisation.
SAM DINGMAN: Sure. I love this idea of the solo is a conversation where the language is notes and the other participants in the conversation are the drummer and the piano player and the bassist and, and whoever else you're playing with.
And speaking of ensembles and, and your work, I find that you do something that other saxophonists who I have been fans of over the years don't do as much, which is that you often have melodies that you're playing on the sax and you're harmonizing with the piano or the bass, or in the case of your most recent record, with the vocalist, Gabrielle Cavassa.
They feel like they're more than a rhythm section that's there to just kind of form a bed for your lead lines.
REDMAN: I don't know you know, I feel like I'm a natural rhythm section player but trapped in a soloist body. Like I do have rhythm section envy in that sense. Like, like I want to just be in the thick and thin and the, and the push and pull and the ebb and flow of it all. Like I love the groove, and not, the groove isn't just a rhythmic thing. It's also a harmonic thing and, and, and the way, you know, the melodic implications. I mean, for, for me, I, I feel like I'm only as good a soloist as I am able to situate myself in the groove that everyone is creating.
DINGMAN: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I have to say, any other Joshua Redmond fans that are listening to this as, as you're talking about groove, are reminded of the fact that one of your first albums was called “Freedom in the Groove.”
REDMAN: Yeah, I guess that's still like, you know, I made some bad albums but I still like some of the titles of them.
DINGMAN: Oh this is fascinating to me. Are we, are we breaking news here? Do you, are you not as attached to that?
REDMAN: No, no, no. I, I have a hard time with a lot of, with much of the stuff I've done. I had like a 30 year rule, like maybe like 30 years after I've done an album, I can finally like, come to terms with it. So, like, you know, I feel like I finally came to terms with like, my first three albums, you know, “Freedom in the Groove” we’re coming up on. That's 2026.
No, my main point was that, like, I mean, you know, “Freedom in the Groove” is kind of a cheesy title, but it's, but it is kind of like what I'm after, what I was after then and what I'm after now, you know, totally. And, you know, another record I did, I think right before it, a live record called “Spirit of the Moment” you know. Again, you know, kind of a basic title. But yeah, that's, that's what I'm about, you know, still, that's it.
DINGMAN: Yeah, absolutely. Well, and, and just to say, you know, for me as a, as a young wannabe jazz player, one of the things that was really appealing to me about those early records, “Freedom in the Groove” in particular, was that there was so much groove on it.
At a time when I was still struggling to wrap my head around the utter freedom of jazz forms, having some tracks on those albums that did have a little bit more of a, a straight ahead groove to them really helped me kind of get on board with the idea of what jazz could be.
REDMAN: For sure. I mean, a lot of the most profound statements in jazz are, you know, these colossal achievements of, of intellect. But I think that the level at which we experience them where they truly have impact on, on us and are lasting, I think that that cannot be explained by the intellectual rigor of the music alone.
DINGMAN: It makes me think of your framing of a solo as a conversation. If you think about having a conversation with somebody, you're not just paying attention to the words you're saying back and forth to each other. You're also, if you're a good conversationalist, paying attention to the tone of the conversation, the kind of emotional energy that it has, the excitement or tentativeness with which subjects are being brought up.
And so it's not just that you're spitting words back and forth at each other, there's an additional layer to it and it's the combination of your ability to intellectually follow the conversational track and to pay attention to the emotional dynamic that makes it a good conversation.
REDMAN: Yeah. And I think that there are always, especially live, there, there, there are elements that, that, that everyone can relate to. Like, I think groove is something that, you know, like, like, like an infectious groove like that. It's mysterious, like when human beings like come together to lock up and, and connect rhythmically, that's something that most people can feel or maybe like you said, like a tentativeness like a, the, the, a delicacy or a kind of you know, tenderness.
These are all gateway, gateway drugs, right? You know, and then, you know, you build a familiarity with it.
DINGMAN: Yeah. So, so speaking of building familiarity, there's a question that I, I love to ask saxophone players in particular and I'll put it to you, which is I am a fellow saxophonist, albeit far less talented. But one of the things that I tell people about playing the saxophone is that it is an incredibly annoying instrument.
Well, what I have found annoying about it historically is that even if you get to a place where you have some solid technique, you know, you can, you can finger all the notes, you can blow with a consistent tone. You know, you can, you can play in tune, all those things. For some reason for me, if you don't have the right cocktail of reed, the right mouthpiece and just the physical horn itself, the way the keys fall under your finger. If you don't have that mix right, it, it can feel almost foreign.
REDMAN: Yeah. I agree with that in the sense that I think ultimately what I'm striving for and I think what a lot of us are striving for is for the instrument to disappear. To feel a sense of, I mean, it's never, it's, it's kind of like a platonic ideal that you're never going to achieve. But like this sense that, that the instrument ceases to become something separate from you.
I think this is true with all music, but jazz in particular there is this element of, kind of like mystery that you always want to preserve. Like, there's an impermanence there, you know, it's built into the way we, we approach this music as it, as improvisers, right? Like, like the song is what it is and we have to honor that, but it's also going to be different every night, you know, and that's what's fun about it. It's always changing.
DINGMAN: I mean, yeah. And to go back to this idea of a great conversation, what makes a conversation really great is that you can't have the same conversation twice.
REDMAN: Exactly.
