O.C. JAZZ REVIEW : Redman: Mature Beyond His Years : At the Coach House, the 24-year-old saxophonist presents a cross-generational quartet creating music that’s ageless.

The huge reception that greeted Joshua Redman on Thursday at the Coach House before he started to play seemed a bit puzzling, especially given the brevity of the 24-year-old saxophonist’s career so far. This was his first appearance in Orange County. Maybe everyone in the capacity crowd was familiar with Redman’s latest release, “Wish,” which has scored well on jazz charts. Or maybe people were cheering because Redman had the smarts to employ guitar wizard Pat Metheny in his current quartet.

Whatever the reason, there was no question as to why the overwhelming ovations continued during the hour and 45-minute set. Playing with maturity beyond his years, Redman made strong, considered improvisational statements again and again, full of exciting twists and turns without once resorting to cheap, emotional appeals. Here is a saxophonist who has developed a voice early, while avoiding the foibles so common to players his age.

Metheny, the versatile and technically respected guitarist who has been leading his own bands for more than 15 years, is a perfect match for Redman. When stating themes in unison, the blend of their two instruments made for clean, firm tones that recalled Redman’s father, saxophonist Dewey Redman’s work with Metheny on the guitarist’s landmark, Ornette Coleman-influenced “80/81” album (Dewey Redman has had a long association with Coleman). And Metheny’s solo work, usually preceding Redman’s forays, seemed to inspire the saxophonist to heated and revelatory heights.

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But the main ingredient of the band’s success was its cross-generational makeup. Neither a pride of young lions with ego problems nor a retirement home where the geriatric jazz set gathers to relive past glories, Redman’s band is a cross-section of experience and ambition. Bassist Christian McBride is 21, Metheny will turn 40 next year and drummer Billy Higgins (who worked a number of years with Coleman) turned 57 this month. Together, they make music that is ageless.

Appropriately, the band opened, as it does on “Wish,” with Coleman’s “Turnaround,” a jaunty little riff constructed on blues changes that gave the soloists a wide field in which to play. Metheny picked his way down a long, descending trail before hot-footing back out on a meandering path. Redman took a more soulful approach, recalling some of Hank Mobley’s work during the funk-jazz period of the ‘60s, starting out with direct, well-spaced lines before building in heat and complexity. McBride proved himself a soloist equal to the company, blending both fleet and more reserved lines into a rhythmically smart narrative.

Metheny’s “Question and Answer” provided the band with its biggest improvisational challenge, and the foursome responded with some of its most ambitious declarations. Metheny used his guitar-synthesizer to scream and cry, while Redman built a series of frantic variations on powerful double-times from Higgins. McBride’s solo employed impossible strings of notes matched against sharply plucked chords that were echoed by Metheny’s quiet comping.

Redman seems to favor the funkier side of the post-bop genre when he writes, and the title tune from “Wish,” as played here, certainly recalled the style championed by pianist Horace Silver, trumpeter Lee Morgan and others during the heyday of the Blue Note label some 30 years ago. But he changed direction on his unaccompanied introduction to Sonny Rollins’ “St. Thomas” by quoting liberally from “All the Things You Are” before generating his own background riff as he eased his way into Rollins’ Caribbean-flavored standard.

Metheny’s best work came during his own “We Had a Sister,” when he turned to acoustic guitar to make some of his most electric passages. After some furious, almost angry strumming, he repeatedly scraped his pick up and down the strings, creating Stockhausen-like electronic effects.

The band’s oldest member, Higgins delivered the most youthful attack, listening carefully to the soloists and providing percussive accents for their every line. Left alone, Higgins created a thunderstorm across his tom-toms before dissolving into the patter of rim and stick-against-stick hits. Though he avoided his trademark, cross-handed snare and tom exchanges, he did create the strong, shimmering cymbal-only passages that long have marked his work.