In the five years since he turned his back on law school and chose a career in music, saxophonist Joshua Redman has been on a path of constant progress, with musical successes matched by popular recognition in a manner rarely seen in the jazz world. After graduating summa cum laude and phi beta kappa from Harvard College, and following a summer of work with his father, the legendary Dewey Redman, Joshua created a sensation by taking first prize in the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Saxophone Competition in 1991, and hasn't looked back since.

The growing legion of Joshua Redman fans has come to rely on his Warner Bros. albums to chart the constant growth that defines his music. His 1993 debut, Joshua Redman, captured the excitement of a new voice taking wing, in the company of such talented contemporaries as Christian McBride and Kevin Hays (who have gone on to carve their own niche in the jazz world). Wish, released later in `93, demonstrated that Redman's tenor saxophone could also excel in the company of such giants as Pat Metheny, Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins, all of whom toured with Redman at the end of the year. 1994's best-selling Mood Swing was another major achievement. This was Redman's first album with his own touring band (featuring McBride, Brad Mehldau and Brian Blade), the first to be made up exclusively of his own compositions, and also marked his debut on soprano saxophone. Spirit of the Moment, from 1995, continued the string of triumphs in a two-CD set recorded live at the Village Vanguard, documenting the new Redman quartet (now featuring pianist Peter Martin, bassist Christopher Thomas and drummer Blade), highlighting Redman's writing skills with 11 new compositions, while capturing the intensity and affirmation of his live performances.

Now the journey continues with Freedom in the Groove. Once again, Redman's band and music have evolved, and once again he has triumphed. The ten original compositions he introduces reflect the open, anti-categorical spirit one would expect from a musician born in 1969 who virtually has kept his ears wide open from birth.

"One thing I've discovered about myself," Redman says, "is that I'm an eclectic -- as a person and as a musician. I grew up listening to and loving all kinds of music, and that variety and diversity are in my soul. I know that I will never be comfortable being perceived as a specialist of one type of music, or as representative of only one style. There doesn't have to be a contradiction between being eclectic and being focused. You and your band can develop a focus and identity that allows eclecticism to take shape."

For Redman, this has meant setting aside the rigidities through which music is often perceived. "Sometimes musicians, especially younger musicians, can get overwhelmed by definitions," he notes. "Especially with jazz, the technical and philosophical demands are so great that you can forget that the music is supposed to be your expression. If your priorities get mixed up, you spend too much attention on the ideal of what jazz should be."

So Redman now freely incorporates non-jazz rhythmic elements into his music, which from his perspective only strengthens its authenticity. "For me," he points out, "this album represents an extension of the soul and spirit of jazz -- improvisation, interaction and spontaneity -- into territory that isn't conventionally considered part of the jazz idiom."

Like the rest of Redman's music, Freedom in the Groove is the product of intense thought and application. "It took me a while to get to this point conceptually," he admits. "For a while I thought I wanted to do more of a funk/jazz project, with electric bass and Fender Rhodes piano and the more backbeat-oriented grooves; but when I started writing, I realized that I didn't want to be limited to that. Even "Can't Dance," which is closest to straight funk, is not straight 4/4 time. The album is more open than I initially expected. It evolved over time because, as much as I love electric music, right now I'm committed to exploring the possibilities of acoustic music."

To further these acoustic explorations, Redman found it imperative to expand his band to quintet size with the addition of guitar. "Having a guitar on the band was crucial to exploring this territory," he emphasizes. "Another instrument allows you to flesh out your voice compositionally, and a guitar is much more flexible than a more traditional quintet instrument. It can be a horn-like instrument in the front line or a member of the rhythm section; and with guitar in the rhythm section I can explore other grooves and textures that I couldn't explore with another horn. I've had some of these ideas in mind for a long time, but couldn't actualize them without the guitar."

Filling this crucial role is Peter Bernstein, who has already built a strong reputation in jazz circles for his work in Larry Goldings' organ trio and with alto sax veteran Lou Donaldson. "Peter was an ideal choice, because in many ways he's atypical," Redman notes. "I wanted a sensitive, cooperative, melodic musician, and that's what Peter is -- he doesn't fall into guitarisms and get caught in pyrotechnics for their own sake. Like me, he grew up listening to Stevie Wonder, the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix. He has these other influences, yet doesn't wear them on his sleeve. Everything he plays is melodic, everything contributes to the goals and identity of the group. He was exactly the sort of guitar player who could give me the stylistic liberty I was looking for, yet still blend into the existing acoustic jazz framework."

Bernstein's ability to fit seamlessly into Redman's concept is one of the defining traits of Freedom in the Groove, from the rock-solid tenor/guitar phrasing of "Home Fries" and the conversational exchanges on "One Shining Soul" to the flexible lead-shifting of "When the Sun Comes Down" and the rhythmic and melodic layering of "Cat Battles." Working the guitarist into Redman's band was both a welcome and a natural process -- "We had no problem getting used to another voice, and Peter had no problem fitting in," Redman reports -- and allowed the saxophonist to address the deeper challenges of his new music.

"We had to make two transitions that were far bigger than just adding another instrument," Redman explains. "One was learning how to tackle compositions with more meat to them, more than melodies with chord changes to blow on. There's more writing with this music, and each musician's parts are more distinct. The writing is deeper and more intricate than on the earlier albums."

The second challenge was rhythmic, or in Redman's words, "how to maintain the fluidity and interactivity we had achieved over swing-based grooves with other sorts of grooves. There's a school of thought that believes a funkier groove does not lend itself to improvisation and jazz, and unfortunately, many of the previous experiments in that context have helped support this assumption. Our challenge was to prove otherwise, to find that same sense of freedom -- not just to play user-friendly dance music, but to carry the same edge and freedom into these new grooves that we've always had with swing."

Knowing that "the music springs from my soul and my emotions, yet only takes shape when all of the other musicians add their personality," Redman looked to his partners for the understanding and creativity they had provided in the past. They did not let him down, proving equally adept at the Brazilian tinges of "Dare I Ask?" the meter and tempo shifts of "Streams of Consciousness" and the off-center, Eastern-tinged funk of "Hide and Seek." Each member rises to the occasion, and displays an ability to assume the focal point in the music's development, as Peter Martin's piano and Christopher Thomas' bass each do at dramatic junctures of "Invocation." Redman places special emphasis on the contribution of his longest-standing bandmate, drummer Brian Blade. "I don't think I would have felt comfortable with this concept if I hadn't been making music with Brian for the past three years," Redman says. "We didn't literally sit down and say `Let's find a concept,' but it definitely springs from Brian's knowledge, capacity and inclinations. Even when he plays funk, he doesn't play it straight -- he mixes in jazz, New Orleans second line and textural things."

Amidst the other changes heard on Freedom in the Groove, Redman also makes his debut as an alto saxophonist on "Invocation" and "Can't Dance." Added to his soprano (heard on "One Shining Soul" and "Pantomime") and tenor, this makes him a three-sax threat. "I've always had a great connection with the alto," he says. "Three of my greatest influences -- Charlie Parker, Cannonball Adderley and especially Ornette Coleman -- are alto players. While I only picked one up last year, I felt connected to it almost immediately. In the same way that I desire to expand my range of expression compositionally, I want to explore new modes of expression through new instruments. I want to develop a voice on those instruments as identifiable as my voice on tenor, and that takes time and commitment. Still, I have a feeling I will always be a tenor player first. I always wanted to play the tenor saxophone, and I've always had a connection with that instrument."

Redman has just completed a successful summer tour with "Remembering Bud Powell," the super group under the direction of Chick Corea that also included Wallace Roney, Christian McBride and Roy Haynes. "It's still important to take sideman opportunities when they come my way," Redman explains. "

Warner Brothers