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Jazz ace performs

There are certain achievements that sound immediately impressive to the ears, among them: Summa Cum Laude graduation from Harvard, admission to Yale Law School and winning both the Downbeat and Rolling Stone awards for Best New Jazz Artist. A person with any one of these accomplishments is enough to make the average college grunt sick; a person with all makes you feel downright suicidal. Meet Joshua Redman.

Just so you don't feel so bad, he's not pursuing both careers at the same time. He was admitted to law school in 1992 but deferred enrollment for a year to pursue music. One year has stretched into four. "Seven years of Ivy League will fry your brain," Redman explained with a relieved laugh. But elbow patches and tweed weren't the only things that drove him to his second calling.

"It was the sum of great opportunities to make music and play with great musicians, not really any one thing," the saxophonist said.

Among these was his first place victory in the Thelonious Monk Saxophone Competition. Redman regards it as a great career opportunity, but a strange musical experience. "Art is subjective. Music, especially jazz, is even more subjective," he said. "How can you say one person's soul is worth more than another?"

Apparently such heavyweight judges as Branford Marsalis, Benny Carter and Jackie McLean thought Redman's soul was worth more than the rest. If nothing else, it was the start of a meteoric career.

When asked about his influences, Redman lists the usual: Rollins, Trane, Lester Young, Miles Davis. But his tastes also run to the more eclectic, like Stevie Wonder, Prince, Zep and Aretha Franklin.

Such a grab bag of styles also accounts for his attitudes toward newer permutations of jazz, like jazz/hip-hop fusion acts. "It's beneficial for music. Whenever you hear musicians expressing themselves honestly it's good for the whole scene. But it's a mistake to think that this type of music is `saving' jazz," he said.

Redman's father, free jazz Wunderkind Dewey Redman enters his son's playing, but not to the extent one might assume. "My father doesn't influence me as my father. His influence has been from afar," the young saxophonist said.

Redman has released four albums: "Joshua Redman," "Wish," "Mood-swing" and the most recent, a double-disc recorded at New York City's legendary Village Vanguard. The Vanguard session displays his most inspired and hard-swinging work to date. The idea to play the club was his, but it wasn't done under the assumption that he would automatically have a good night there.

"Playing the Vanguard doesn't insure a good show," Redman said. "You can have a great night anywhere. It's not like you can hear Trane whispering in your ear as you play. But there is a great sense of historical weight."

You can tell a lot about a musician by who he listens to. Among his contemporaries, Redman lists Roy Hargrove (trumpet), Christian McBride (bass), Jesse Davis (sax) and Cyrus Chestnut (piano). Most of these names have appeared with Redman's on marquees across the country and in a myriad of liner notes.