Even though sax man Joshua Redman was surrounded by music most of his life his original career goal was medicine or law. Interestingly his father saxophone great Dewey Redman was not a huge influence on his son until much later in his life. Joshua Redman's mother was the caretaker who introduced her son to everything from the Beatles to John Coltrane. We talked to Joshua backstage just before his soundcheck at Max Bell Theatre in Calgary on June 25th, 2003.

John Beaudin - Hi Joshua. Welcome to Calgary.

Joshua Redman - Thanks John.

John - How's the Canadian Jazz scene to you? Are we healthy? I've talked to some Jazzers who think we have a long way to go.

Joshua - I think like the U.S., Canada is a big country and I think you have different sections of the country that are more receptive or more knowledgeable of the music. In the United States you have New York, San Francisco, Chicago, New Orleans, Seattle and Los Angeles which are places I play all the time and there's an audience that's familiar with the music and embrace the music. In Canada you have places like Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.

John - Yeah, they're all huge Jazz cities.

Joshua - Yeah, big Jazz towns. You also have the towns that aren't as big Jazz towns but whenever you go to play people come out and their receptive and responsive so I would not say that Canadians are less receptive to the music than Americans. I'd say it's about the same and it's so hard to generalize you know. I don't like to generalize because every state or in your case province is different but every city is different and every venue within every city is different and then every night in every venue is different. I find generally that Jazz is a music that not too many people know about or are exposed to. Generally most people are a little bit unsure about and it's a little obscure to them and even a little intimidating or at least their conception of it is. Once they have the opportunity to experience it if they come in with an open mind and open ears then their pleasantly surprised and they find something in the music that they can connect with and hopefully they'll keep coming back for more.

John - I know you're a big John Coltrane fan and that's how I was exposed to his music. I only let it in when I was open minded or a least let my guard down and I really appreciated his sound or in his case sounds because he liked to travel down different roads.

Joshua - Yeah. It snuck up on you. I've been listening to John Coltrane's music for as long as I can remember because my mom was a Coltrane fan. Also, in there was the music of Cannonball Adderley, Ornette Coleman and my father Dewey Redman so a lot of Jazz has been with me since the day I was born. It's always been a familiar music to me but I've not always understood it, I'm still trying to understand it. Jazz is such a complex music. The more you learn about it the more you realize how much you have left to learn so Jazz is still the sound of surprise to me. Jazz though never felt alien to me from a cultural or an emotional standpoint it always felt familiar to me because it was always around. With John Coltrane it always felt right. It was never intimidating or scary it was always beautiful to me. It was powerful and raging at times but certainly always beautiful and always accessible to me.

John - I've always liked the stories of how people find that sound that makes a difference in their lives.

Joshua - You know it's a matter of exposure and it's a matter of timing and for everyone it's different. If you're exposed to a certain type of music at a very early age then that music does become a part of you and becomes accessible and familiar to you. If that exposure happens later than maybe you'll be at a place in your life where the music sounds less familiar and you can't really connect with it. Then maybe one day it does just hit or like for you it sneaks up on you and you think, wow, this is right for me!

John - I know you've said in the past that as you get older and form your own style that some times you stop and you can hear your dad in your playing.

Joshua - Well, first of all I never felt like I was overly influenced by my father. My father's music was always around me but I did not grow up with my father and he was one of many musicians that influenced me and that I listened to and he was certainly one of the first Jazz musicians that I listened to. Later once I started to play the saxophone and really started to listen to more Jazz and started to study more Jazz musicians he was not one of the main ones. People like Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, Joe Henderson, Ben Webster, Lester Young and John Coltrane these were my primary early influences. My fathers always been an influence but if anything I think initially what was remarkable or what people remarked on was how different we sounded and I think to a certain extent that was true but his music was always a part of me.

John - So, it was always there.

Joshua - Yeah. A strange thing is now that I find myself finding my own voice and my own sound as a musician the more I can hear traces of my father. It's kind of a paradox almost. It's true maybe earlier on I could hear a lot more of the obvious tenor titan people like Coltrane and Rollins, Gordon, Lester Young and maybe less of my father. So yeah, now that I find I'm developing my own personal voice I hear traces of him in greater and greater effects. I don't know why that is, I guess it's always been a part of me.

John - The Elastic album to me is an interesting journey. It's like you took the transistor radio apart and while you were putting it back together again you tweaked it. It's a little more grove oriented with a little more soul. What was going through your mind when you started that album?

Joshua - My thoughts or my intentions with that album were no different than with any other album or any recording project that I undertake. It's simply to play some good honest music and capture that in recorded form. In most cases it's also trying to capture the sound of a band. That's what I've done with most of my previous albums. I had a band, I wrote music for the band, we went out and toured and developed that music in the real live setting that music should be developed and then we went into the studio and tried to capture that. We tried to capture the spirit and essence of that music in a recording. So the same thing happened with this 'Elastic' music and with this band. I wrote the music, Sam Yahel, Brian Blade and my self worked on it, we rehearsed it and we went on the road for a few weeks then we went into the studio and tried to capture it and make a good record. In that sense there was nothing really different about the thought process behind it.

John - Sounds like you don't go into a recording project with a set of expectations.

Joshua - That's right. I've learnt in my short time making records that too many expectations going in are dangerous. It's not always good to go in with too clear a vision of what you want to accomplish. The reality is you don't know what's going to happen. Every night is different. You never know what's going to happen when you role tape or as you go through the process of selecting the takes and editing them and mixing an album and coming up with a finished project.

John - You could lose something.

Joshua - You could lose something. You can overlook great serendipitous events that could occur. If you're too focused in your vision of a future you can overlook the magic of the present. Things happen especially in music like Jazz when you're playing that you would never intend or expect. In fact, that's what Jazz is all about. You want to be in a frame of mind and have a field of vision where you can see or capture those things and use them to make good music. So, I didn't want too clear a sense of what could happen.

John - Let me ask you this way. What's the difference for you as the artist between "Elastic" and say "Passage of Time?"

Joshua - I think the difference with this album in spite of the fact that it's different instrumentation and difference stylistic reference points is that I was willing to use the studio a little bit more as an instrument.

John - What do you mean by that?

Joshua - What I mean is that with all my previous albums basically the process was have a band, have some music, go out and play live, go into the studio, do a few takes of every song, mix the album and it's done with very little production in the making of the record in terms of using the studio. There was very little editing on my previous album, no overdubs or nothing like that with this album. What I tried to do was take that approach initially but then I went back and thought about ways in which I could augment some of the songs. It could have been adding other parts, using hopefully tasty overdubs or edits so there was a little more of the studio process involved. It's still very minimal. I would say 95% of what you hear is what we played in the moment live that got captured on tape. There is another 5% whether its other saxophone voices that come in, other keyboard voices, or certain structural decisions that we made with the music after we initially recorded it. There were a lot of different ways that we tried to enhance the music and make the songs better and make the overall effect more powerful.

John - Can we expect more studio wizardry in the next one?

Joshua - I'm thinking maybe a little bit more. I'm already planning on making another record with this band so maybe that 5% will turn into 10% next time.

John - It's been said many times that there seems to be more virtuosity in Jazz or Classical music, with that comes I think more rules by some of the fans on what's Jazz and some of these fans can be quite conservative or disown an artist because you've strayed off the path. Do you ever get that from your Jazz purist fans?

Joshua - Sure, but I don't like terms like Jazz purists or Jazz Nazi's. I think different people have different tastes. Jazz is a music that a few people and it's very few relative to the entire music audience out there; Jazz is a music that a few people really love. Some of those few people have very particular tastes about what they like and their very passionate. I think anybody who listens to Jazz is very passionate and with that comes great conviction as to what constitutes good music. I think that's natural. There are people in the Jazz community listeners, critics and musicians themselves who are very passionate about what they like and also very stubborn about what they like. They can be very stubborn on what they think constitutes as valid Jazz and what doesn't. I think that's fine. It doesn't bother me. You know a lot of musicians complain about that but its okay, everyone has their tastes everyone has their opinions and their entitled to those. I think what's important is that we as artists shouldn't feel intimidated by those opinions. We have to pursue the artistic avenues that excite us and ultimately what my responsibility is as a musician is to try to play as honestly and expressively as I can. So I put that out there and it's for other people to judge. I certainly judge my own music usually very harshly. (Laughing)

John - (laughing) Yeah, but that's probably good and probably why you're here!

Joshua - (Laughing) Well maybe. I think self criticism can be a motivating force but it can also be a debilitating force at times but that's another story. Anyway, I respect anyone's opinions and tastes as long as they are coming from an honest place, as long as they like or don't like something because of how they feel. What you have to be careful of is when those tastes are turned into prescription for how other musicians should behave or how music should be. You know since the beginning there have been people who have liked what I've done and haven't liked it at all. Some people have had discussions on if my music constitutes as valid Jazz. I really don't believe in valid or invalid Jazz. I think Jazz is kind of a make-shift category that we've kind of created to embrace a wonderful music but it's only a description it's not a prescription. I think because it's a description it's only going to be approximate and it can only approximate the many different artists and sounds and styles that it's applied to. I think when you start to use it as something more than an approximate description that's when you get into trouble. When you say Jazz is this and therefore if you're a Jazz musician you should do this. That's dangerous and I understand why it's out there but it doesn't influence the choices that I make.

John - So, were you really going to be a doctor?

Joshua - Yeah definitely.

John - But you had all this great music education and introduction from your mom and of course your dad being a world class musician didn't hurt.

Joshua - I really wasn't going to be a musician. It was never something that I considered with any level of seriousness until after I graduated from college. This is a big accident it's a great accident. (Laughing) I'm a very, very lucky individual.

John - Doctors are well appreciated but I don't think they'd be lined up to watch you operate like they are here at the venue tonight.

Joshua - (Laughing) Who knows. I also wanted to go to law school actually. After I had already graduated I had already applied and been accepted into law school so that's the direction I thought I was going in but thankfully I was saved. (Laughing)

John - There are so many categories in Jazz and there many not be a category unto themselves but there are a lot of young Jazzer's who are finding success like Peter Cincotti, Norah Jones and Michael Buble.'

Joshua - Well, Norah Jones and Peter Cincotti are about as far apart as you can imagine.

John - Sure but because what they do is considered Jazz to the mainstream audience then they are Jazz. Norah Jones has every style imaginable on her album but folks still consider her Jazz firstly.

Joshua - Well, just because other people decide to slap or toss two very different artists in the same category, I don't recognize them as being the same. First of all, every artist is hopefully in a category unto him or herself.

John - On some level they are but I don't think every Joe-lunch-bucket out there thinks that way.

Joshua - Well, this is the utopian ideal and artists are always talking about that. I hear it all the time how 'I don't want to be labeled or categorized.' Of course we don't but by the same token we need these labels and categories.

John - Well for one they need to find you in the record store.

Joshua - Yeah but also we need them to speak about what we do. Words essentially are labels and categories themselves. They are these things that are trying to communicate concepts which have some degree of generality to them. I think Norah Jones by the way is amazing. She's an amazing talent and an incredible vocalist. I don't actually know her record that well, of course I hear those songs all over the place. I had the opportunity to hear her live and it just blew me away. She can sing. She has such an incredible instrument and there such a soulfulness and I'm not talking about soul like the style or R&B soul but I'm talking about an honesty and a natural depth and feeling to her sound. It's so compelling whatever she's singing. The record is not what I would call a Jazz record but it's a great record, it's just not a Jazz record. She could be an amazing Jazz vocalist and at the concert that I say she did an interpretation of Horace Silver's "Peace" which was one of the greatest Jazz performances I've ever heard or I should say Jazz vocal performances. She's an amazing musician.

John - And Peter Cincotti?

Joshua - Peter Cincotti I haven't heard that much. Certainly he's singing in a style that's traditional Jazz, the traditional American songbook but what I've heard is really good. I also saw an interview with him and he really impressed me as just being very level headed and really intelligent and really composed and mature. So I think they're both great but are they part of the same movement? I don't think so. They're just two young musicians who are both in their own way related to Jazz but their music couldn't be more different.

John - Joshua, thanks a lot. I know you have to get out of here and do your sound check. Thanks for the time.

Joshua - Thank you John