A Blast of Fresh Air : Saxophonist Joshua Redman Is a Red-Hot Newcomer Acclaimed by Critics and Peers in the Jazz World

“Man, sometimes I’m overwhelmed,” says Joshua Redman, talking from his home in Brooklyn, N.Y., about the hectic pace of his life these days.

Acclaimed by critics and peers as a world-class saxophonist after winning the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz’s sax competition in November, 1991, Redman has hardly had a moment to breathe since then.

The past month alone has found Redman, 24, holding forth for a week at the famed Village Vanguard in Manhattan, making a dash-here, dash-there tour of Europe with drummer Paul Motian and appearing on a recording session led by fellow saxophonist Joe Lovano. In the year preceding, he recorded with drummer Elvin Jones, bassist Charlie Haden’s Liberation Orchestra and his father, saxophonist Dewey Redman.

“I’m so busy,” he says half in exhilaration, half frustration.

Making his Los Angeles debut Tuesday through next Sunday at Catalina Bar & Grill in Hollywood, Redman will perform with pianist Kevin Hays, bassist Christian McBride and drummer Brian Blade. That dynamo rhythm section, with Greg Hutchison in for Blade, appears on “Joshua Redman,” the hornman’s first Warner Bros. album, which is receiving its share of raves.

Not since the arrival of Wynton Marsalis in the early 1980s has there been as auspicious a new presence in the jazz pantheon. Redman plays tenor saxophone with a sultry, swarthy tone that is wide as a barrel, embracing as a hug from a friend. His long, swirling lines or abbreviated, punchy statements are issued with an agility that recalls the leaps, glides and stutter-steps of Baryshnikov.

Redman almost didn’t become a professional musician. Although he was exposed to recordings by Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane and his father early in life, academic excellence was his initial goal. A 1986 valedictorian at Berkeley High School in the Bay Area, he attended Harvard University on a full scholarship, majoring in social studies and graduating summa cum laude in June, 1990.

“I went to school to make sure that if I did end up in music, I would never be forced to do something that runs counter to my artistic instincts in order to put food on the table,” he explains. He planned to attend law school at Yale--he was also accepted at Harvard and Stanford--but took a year’s deferment and went to New York, where he began to practice music on a daily basis.

“When opportunities opened up for me, I decided I wanted to pursue music as my first life priority,” Redman says.

“I realized the dedication it takes to play jazz, which is a demanding and unrelenting, yet amazingly uplifting art form,” says the amiable artist, who lists his mother, Renee Shedroff, who raised him as a single parent, as his greatest artistic influence. Through recordings she introduced him to the artists who became his saxophone mentors: Rollins, his primary role model; Coltrane; Stanley Turrentine; Gene Ammons; and, naturally, Dewey Redman.

Until he began performing with his father in 1990, the younger Redman knew him only through occasional trips Dewey Redman made to the Bay Area from his home in New York.

“I never really knew him and now I’m getting to know him through the context of music, which is the way I feel the most comfortable anyway,” says Joshua Redman. “He has a way of incorporating into his playing what he experienced growing up as a black man in Texas, which is something I’ll never experience. When I play with him, and learn to incorporate his way of playing, I grow as a musician, and as a person, learning something about my history and heritage through music. That’s a wonderful experience.

“There was never that kind of father-son respect-competition dynamic, because he wasn’t really my father in that sense. He wasn’t around, so there wasn’t something I had to live up to. I didn’t see him that way. But if you’re going to play tenor saxophone, there’s the legacy of Rollins, Coltrane, Dexter Gordon and Dewey Redman, and that’s intimidating enough.”

Redman’s career got its jump-start when he won the Monk competition in Washington. There, he came out ahead of such young but seasoned pros as Tim Warfield and Chris Potter. TV appearances and offers from major record labels followed.

Redman has already packed away some highlights that he’ll always treasure. Recording on Elvin Jones’ “Youngblood” (Enja Records) CD was one; being in the studio with Haden, guitarist Pat Metheny and drummer Billy Higgins, who’ll appear on his second Warner release, was another.

Though he’s just getting started, older, established players revere Redman. One is bassist Haden, with whom Redman recorded in a small group context last September.

“Joshua’s searching for beauty,” Haden says. “The thing that’s important to him is invention. He’s reaching for things that are beyond him, but which he usually gets anyway. He’s very mature and very deep--way ahead for his age.”