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Today, Blue Note is proud to announce a rare series of MoodSwing Reunion concerts set for April 2022. Led by saxophonist Joshua Redman, who performs alongside pianist Brad Mehldau, bassist Christian McBride, and drummer Brian Blade, the supergroup is set to play back-to-back shows at New York cultural institutions Blue Note Jazz Club on April 18 (8:00PM & 10:30PM) and The Town Hall on April 19 (8:00PM). The announcement arrives amidst Blue Note’s 40th anniversary and The Town Hall’s centennial. Founded by suffragists in 1921, The Town Hall was the city’s original home to see world-renowned jazz collectives and one-of-a-kind performances. The venue was also the last place that the members of the original Joshua Redman Quartet—Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride, and Brian Blade—performed at in the early 1990s.
“It seems somehow fitting that the first concert of our ‘reunion’ tour will be at the same venue (The Town Hall) in which we played our final gig as a regular working quartet in the early 90s,” explains Joshua Redman. “Those days are long gone. But we’re still here. And I, for one, take none of this for granted! It will also (amazingly) be my first live performance in New York for (gulp!) over 3 years. So grateful to be returning to the grandest jazz city in the world with three of the greatest jazz musicians on the planet. April 2022 can’t come soon enough!”
An acclaimed saxophonist, Joshua Redman is one of the most forward-thinking and charismatic jazz artists to have emerged in the 1990s. In 1994, he released MoodSwing, an album of original compositions that introduced his quartet with fellow rising jazz luminaries pianist Brad Mehldau, bassist Christian McBride, and drummer Brian Blade. While the group was only together for a year and a half, their influence and reach were felt globally, as the individual players rapidly ascended to become some of the world’s most in-demand musicians. Nonetheless, Redman continued to work closely with each of his quartet bandmates and in 2020, they all reunited to release RoundAgain, the foursome’s first recording together since MoodSwing. RoundAgain features seven newly composed songs: three from Redman, two from Mehldau, and one each from McBride and Blade.The album was met with critical acclaim and NPR declared it “a flawless effort.” Redman is thrilled to bring the reunited band together for a series of rare shows at two of New York’s most prestigious venues.
“It’s an honor for Blue Note to present this group’s reunion in both the The Town Hall concert setting, and at our intimate Blue Note Jazz Club venue,” says Alex Kurland, Director of Programming at Blue Note. “We’re grateful and extremely excited for these shows. All four artists are brilliant, and culturally iconic within jazz and art. The rejoining of forces with this particular quartet is truly historic in New York City.”
Watch Redman, Mehldau, McBride and Blade’s 2020 reunion at The Falcon in New York's Hudson Valley, presented by Jazz Night in America and NPR Music: https://youtu.be/SVNKQtPvv00
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