Jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman brings his ‘musical conversation’ back to Lexington

It’s been awhile since Joshua Redman has performed in Lexington. To be exact, 30 years have passed — a bit of a regional dry spell for such an internationally recognized jazz artist.

“Well, I’ve been to the Cincinnati airport a lot,” he remarked. “Does that count?”

Truth to tell, when the saxophonist first played the Singletary Center for the Arts in October 1996, he was an already visible member of a pack of young artists giving fresh vitality and new voicings to traditionally minded hard bop. Since then, his senses of collaboration and composition, along with keen musical instincts, have placed him in the company of multiple generations of jazz talent.

But in the three ensuing decades since his last Lexington concert, Redman’s fascination with the possibilities of jazz, as well as his own role within the music’s growth, has remained immovable.

“I don’t see myself, really, any differently now than I did then,” he said. “I mean, hopefully, I’m a little more mature, a little more knowledgeable, a little more seasoned. Hopefully, I play with a little more subtlety and taste than I did when I was performing 35 years ago.

“Even now, I’m almost 57, I don’t try to own the story of my musical life. In a way, I’m still a novice just figuring out basic stuff about music. I’m still in a state of awe and wonder. Every musical situation I’m in, I try to bring my full self to a place as obviously and creatively as I can in a way that connects to the musicians I’m playing with and, hopefully, the audience I’m playing for. That’s been my fundamental approach, my philosophy, if you will. That hasn’t changed.”

The recognition factor has changed, though. The members that made up one of Redman’s first performance quartets — pianist Brad Mehldau, bassist Christian McBride and drummer Brian Blade — have been heralded bandleaders for many years. Their collective popularity is, in fact, so broad, that two recent reunion albums —2020’s “RoundAgain” and 2022’s “LongGone” — were credited not to Redman but to all four members.

But the years have unavoidably shifted Redman’s place within the jazz spectrum. He was 24 when his self-titled debut album as a leader was released. In 2025, with the issue of the splendid “Words Fall Short,” the saxophonist is at the helm of a quartet completed by pianist Paul Cornish, bassist Philip Norris and drummer Nazir Ebo — all players roughly the age Redman was when his sophomore record, 1993’s “Wish,” placed him in the company of such jazz giants as Pat Metheny, Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins.

“I joke around with some musicians of my generation, like Christian McBride, Brad Mehldau and Brian Blade, saying that, yes, we’re kind of the old guys now. But in making music with Paul and Philip and Nazir, I’m never like, ‘I’m the elder statesman, so let me show you how this goes.’ Not at all. I really feel like I don’t make music any differently than I would playing with musicians from my own generation or older musicians.

“As you age, hopefully some things deepen and broaden. That’s the great thing about being a musician as opposed to being, say, a sprinter or even a basketball player. You have a much longer career where you’re hopefully playing at a very high level.

“You know, at 57 the body and the brain don’t move and fire the way they did at 27 or 17. These guys in my band now are all just under 30. They’re so strong. They’re so fast. They’re so smart. That puts a fire under my ass.”

All this doesn’t mean Redman doesn’t maintain a reverence for certain elders. For a 2024 article in “Jazz Times,” Redman played interviewer with Sonny Rollins, one of jazz music’s most towering saxophone inspirations. Rollins was 94 at the time.

“I don’t think I have a greater inspiration as a saxophonist or as an improviser,” Redman said of Rollins. “I mean, there was John Coltrane. I listened to him and my father (famed saxophonist and frequent Ornette Coleman and Keith Jarrett collaborator Dewey Redman) longer than anyone. But with someone like Sonny, you understand the true power and potential of improvisation and how it could be completely off the cuff and in the moment, that playing totally unscripted can be full of full of danger and surprise. Yet with Sonny, it’s done in a way that has structure and logic.”

Curiously, Rollins was indirectly responsible for one of Redman’s highest profile concert cameo appearances. Rollins was an unexpected part of the Rolling Stones’ 1981 album “Tattoo You.” He supplied the luminous sax solo at the end of the hit single “Waiting on a Friend,” which concluded the album. Rollins, however, declined an offer from the Stones to play on the song at a December 1997 stadium concert in St. Louis that was recorded for a DVD. The Stones then turned to Redman to add his own saxophone color to “Waiting on a Friend.”

“Yeah, they wanted Sonny to come out, but he didn’t want to play the gig, so they called me. I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll come.’ I grew up a Stones fan. Man, that was an experience to go onstage before 50 or 60,000 people with the Rolling Stones. No rehearsal. Never played with them before. And I was playing the tune Sonny Rollins did with them.”

If there is a common thread among Redman’s performance scenarios through the year, it’s collaboration — whether it was the revisited quartet with Mehldau, McBride and Blade, his current ensemble with Cornish, Norris and Ebo or even a situation as unexpected as sitting in with the Stones, Redman feels his freest and most creative when like-minded talents are playing alongside him.

“Every musical situation I find myself in — every working one, at least — is collaborative regardless of what the music is or who the bandleader is or isn’t. I’m only as good as the musicians I’m playing with. I’m always trying to have a musical conversation.

“Music is my social life. It’s when I’m the most open and relaxed. That collaborative spirit ...I mean, that’s what improvising is. It’s not playing what you practiced. It’s about having a real time conversation with other musicians.”

Joshua Redman Quartet

When: Jan. 25 at 6 p.m.

Where: Singletary Center for the Arts Recital Hall, 405 Rose St.

Tickets: $45 public, $12 students, free for University of Kentucky students

Online: finearts.uky.edu/singletary-center