Reviews:

If Joshua Redman is no Sonny Rollins, he’s at least got the good taste to wish he was. He may even have the good taste to wish he were less tasteful, or at least to apparently realize that good taste is not what makes one the next Sonny Rollins. Or at least that’s what I gather from Compass, an equally witty and playful counterpart to last years terrific Back East.

Redman admitted to peeping about beneath the legs of the saxophone colossus on that previous record, an experiment with the piano-less saxophone trio that Rollins mastered years ago, and he revisits that format on Compass. Here, however, Redman mixes things up—five of these 13 tracks feature two bassists (Larry Grenadier and Reuben Rogers) and two drummers (Brian Blade and Gregory Hutchinson), while another two cuts feature both bassists.

Redman’s playing feels slightly less rambunctious, a shade more delicate, than on Back East, particularly in the case of "Moonlight," his take on "Moonlight Sonata." But his sax is no less playful, though it may have taken on some more sly manners than on the outing immediately previous. The fluttering soprano opening to "Ghost," for instance, is the equivalent of a sheet with two eyeholes, a lovely eastern melody. And there are plenty of titles so helpful here they may very well have preceded the compositions. "Insomnomaniac" is restless and repetitive, suggesting 3 a.m. floorboards paced with increasing speed and frustration, and the melody line of "Identity Thief" suggests a cat burglar of sorts. Redman has always had the chops to be a standard-bearer—the wit he’s developing with age is just a bonus.