Redman Searching Across Instruments and Settings
Redman's tenor is the anchor here, but the real pleasure is watching him refuse to stay put.
Coincide puts Dewey Redman in front of several different ensembles, and the album lives up to its title—different lineups, different moods, all recorded in the same year but feeling like separate conversations. You hear him on tenor, clarinet, and zither across these tracks, which sounds stranger on paper than it plays. The tenor work is the meat of the record. Redman swings with a rough, searching tone, never smooth, always reaching for something just outside the obvious phrase. When he picks up clarinet, the texture gets thinner and more exploratory, less assured—not a weakness, just a different tool. The zither moments are brief and add color without dominating.
AllMusic reviewer Scott Yanow heard an intriguing album that mostly works, awarding it 4 stars. He was right that Redman's tenor is what pulls you back. That's where his voice is clearest and most urgent. The other instruments matter more as evidence of his restlessness than as alternate identities. This isn't a player content to be a tenor specialist; it's a player testing what he can do across different sonic territory. That impulse is interesting even when the results are uneven.
Coincide belongs to Redman's earlier recordings for Impulse!, before his later work found deeper groove. It's a working musician's album—solid, curious, not settling into one mode. Not essential in the way some of his best sessions are, but worth hearing if you want to know what he was exploring at the time.
Who's playing
Sironedouble bass
Dewey Redmantenor saxophone
Ted Danieltrumpet
Leroy Jenkinsviolin
Eddie Mooremembranophone
Where next?
More by Dewey Redman
All 21 albums →
The musicians on this record
Their own records, close in time
