Review - Joshua Redman Group @ Troy Savings Bank Music Hall

The best part of live music is not knowing what you will witness. I think back to 2019 when I saw a screening of Parasite by Bong Joon-ho; I did absolutely no research and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I never heard of Joshua Redman until my piano tuner, Jonathan, told me about him. Jonathan and I go back and forth over a few things: peace in the Middle East, who should be president, etc. but the safe harbor is everything related to the piano.

Before we go further, we must understand that if we think musicians have opinions with regards to the music, we must accept that the technicians have opinions on the apparatus from which the music is emitted from. Jonathan thinks my 90 year-old Monarch baby-grand is neat, but reminds me that I bought it for $200. He tunes it half a step flat (at my request: there is a crack in the outer slope of bass bridge) when citing the other pianos he works on. Like the one Redman's group (opens in a new tab) would be playing.

Jonathan told me, at the time, that the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall's grand piano had just returned to its home after being "re-built" in some fashion. The term "re-built" holds a similar meaning to "refinish" or "restore" as used by woodworkers, but the piano tech means "we have taken a goddamn piano apart and put it back together again" when they use the word built in "re-built." To learn more about this, he suggests reading "Under the Lid (opens in a new tab)" by Stephen H. Brady, or "Pianos Inside Out (opens in a new tab)" by Mario Igrec. Moving on: this piano had some work done to improve the brightness and the voicing. Curators of music venues cry for "brighter piano" as much as a 70's rock fan cry "more cowbell." The piano at the Hall has received feedback that its voice is buried when preforming with a group. Jonathan said that the Joshua Redman Group will be the debut performance of the piano since it's spa day away, so I went and bought tickets for the show in a couple weeks.

We arrived 30 mins late to the performance; I had placed the calendar event for Thursday instead of Wednesday but thankfully I noticed an email from the Hall in my inbox reminding me (Thanks Box Office!). We entered as vocalist Cavassa whispered "such a lovely place, such a lovely face" and the group drew us through a dreamy cover of The Eagles. Why did I buy tickets to an Eagles cover band? shot through my mind, but I held my tongue. We settled in and Joshua spoke.

Joshua is touring his album Where Are We. He acknowledged a theme (of many) of "places in the United States" and a reflection of "where we have been, and where we are going." Tonight's selection would be a curation of tracks from the album, which are blends of ideas from different songs based on locations in the United Sates. We had missed out on Chicago Blues and met them with Hotel California, now we journey onto Streets of Philadelphia and By The Time I Get To Phoenix.

Joshua Redman Group is: drummer Brian Blade, pianist Aaron Parks, double bassist Joe Sanders, vocalist Gabrielle Cavassa, and saxophonist Joshua Redman.

The group's foundation, the drum and bass, is tight. Moving through these songs, you feel the union between them. I wish Blade pushed the envelope more during his solos; they felt restrained by staying within the time signature. Regardless, his choice of percussion support was expert to hold the group together. Sanders's energy is impulsive when it comes alive: he has range in his ability to whisper the high bass lines rapidly that come crashing down into a piercing melody.

Parks had a real run of the piano. He appeared and disappeared; one moment the melody is there, right there, dancing above the others; and then the next it's creating a mist, background for the others to hang their voices on. As a pianist with his very own $200 piano, I thought the Hall's piano was too bright (sacrilege!) in the sense of lack of lower timbre; I know that sound resonates through the body of a piano and develops sympathetic vibrations from the lower strings due to the harmonic series. The re-built work done was meant to narrow the dissonances generated from the mid-to-upper strings to render a clearer sound; Jonathan said the technician that worked on it downstate added a new brass bar to suspend the strings just so, and green felt near the Agraffe to reduce the vibrations.

To be honest, I had a hard time hearing Cavassa. The Hall's acoustical properties have a lot of benefits that lead to sound filling the space. Especially when everyone is rowing together, like a symphony. Gentle crooning does come through in certain songs, but the sound designer had to up their gain for later.

Redman returns to the stage and introduces the final piece: Alabama. He illustrates the composition by discussing America's journey in its identity through its people by firmly pressing two songs together: the jazz standard Stars Fell On Alabama (a song about 2 lovers), and Alabama by John Coltrane, a meditation on the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church by the Ku Klux Klan on September 15th, 1963. Cavassa steps aside for the piece, and Redman took center stage. The instruments melded into an amorphous roll At three different moments during his sax solo, Redman's eyes turned upward with an expression that I could only assume was a mix of pleading and freight, communicating to the ghost of John Coltrane, asking to be a conduit of musical expression. The music swirled in a violent orgy as he descended into a integrated cacophony between him, the pianist, double bassist, and the drummer. Madness, power, and emotion.

We left after that. My head was swimming from the saxophone as we hit the cold air, clarifying vision.