Album Review: Joshua Redman - Walking Shadows

Sax with strings. It's a dangerous choice for any jazz musician; you run the risk of ripping off Charlie Bird Parker's seminal strings sessions and also of falling into Kenny G, elevator music territory. The lush, contemplative The Folks Who Live On The Hill that Joshua Redman chooses to open Walking Shadows with certainly recalls Bird's efforts, but that is meant as a warm compliment.

Warmth is common evocation on saxophone-driven jazz records and it's a term easily applied to much of this record. Things are a little more boisterous on the second track, the Billy Strayhorn standard Lush Life. Hearing Redman dance amongst Brad Mehldau's playful piano interplay with the rhythm section is as impressive as it appears effortless. A suitably seductive string section is downplayed here, adding flourish to the instrumental chemistry rather than dominating it. And it is in this mode the album works best, which it does on the most striking, and relaxed of song choices here – a one-two punch of John Mayer's Stop This Train and Bach's Adagio.

Alas, it isn't all relaxed groove and sex – tracks like Easy Living and Last Glimpse Of Gotham push the strings to the fore and the actual jazz becomes lost in a saccharine haze of parodist lushness.

Redman is a damn talented sax player and a none too shabby band leader, but he hasn't stepped out of his league here; this is still a straight down the middle of the road hard bop album with string backing. At its best, it's seductive, gorgeous and the ideal backing to a nice drink with close company. It's just a shame it occasionally falls into cliché and background 1950s theatre music.