The Thespian
Word has come that the peripatetic composer-pianist Freddie Redd has died at 92. He hit a peak in 1960, recording two masterpieces, "The Connection" (February) & six months later the equally remarkable but more obscure "Shades of Redd." (Both LPs are on Blue Note.)
Word has come that the peripatetic composer-pianist Freddie Redd has died at 92. He hit a peak in 1960, recording two masterpieces, "The Connection" (February) & six months later the equally remarkable but more obscure "Shades of Redd." (Both LPs are on Blue Note.)
2 "The Connection" is Redd's score for Jack Gelber's play of the same name that ran in NY at the experimental Living Theatre, 1959-60. Redd's 4qt w/Jackie McLean appeared as actors, performing at regular intervals. (Gelber specifies music in the style of Charlie Parker.)
3 The play is a bleak, existential drama descended from "Waiting for Godot" and "The Iceman Cometh," with a play-within-in-a-play structure about a bunch of heroin addicts waiting around for their connection.
4 Redd's score is a miracle of delirious hard-bop lyricism -- bittersweet melodies and harmonies, often laid out in descending ii/V7 or iib5/ V7b9 sequences. “Who Killed Cock Robin” is full of this sound. Michael Mattos, bass; Larry Ritche, drums.
5 The elaborate form is typical. It’s a 72-bar, thru-composed song. 16-bar intro + 56-bar melody that’s always mutating but breaks down into 8-bar sections. Harmonically, it’s sort of A A B B A1 B B. Solos are over a 40-bar chorus (A A B B A) but it’s easy to get turned around.
6. You feel as if you’re always sliding down the side of one hill or another, and before you realize it, you’re somehow back at the top. How’d I get back HERE?
7 Jackie plays his ass off, flying through these changes. He was born to play this music, his tart sound and wayward pitch italicizing the muscular, wounded beauty of Redd’s melodies and harmony.
8 “The Connection” was especially critical to McLean, who because of his previous drug arrests, did not have a cabaret card that at the time was necessary to work in nightclubs in New York.
9 Tadd Dameron and perhaps Horace Silver are likely reference points for Redd, but his voice was his own. Here’s another beaut: “Time to Smile” – a reference to the euphoria of the high after shooting up.
10 Shirley's Clarke's film "The Connection" (1961) mirrors the stage production, but the hyper-realistic acting slips into camp on film. Still, the music is hot and some contemporary accounts suggest it was electric on stage, especially after the cast began improvising dialogue.
11 The full-length film is on YouTube. I won’t link to it because it’s surely not an authorized posting, but here’s the trailer.
12 The tunes on "Shades of Redd" are cut from the same cloth as “The Connection.” If pressed to name a definitive Redd composition I might choose "The Thespian," which also has a sui generis form.
13 There’s a full chorus as a yearning ballad, before the tune repeats at twice the tempo. Within this frame comes myriad formal wrinkles. The core song is AABA, but the last A is truncated to 6 bars, followed by a striking 7-bar coda (more descending sequences).
14 Then an abrupt shift to double time; the coda (stretched to 8 bars) repeats twice in the faster tempo as a transition back to the top. It sounds pedantic in words, but it all unfolds naturally. Redd's music sounds as if it flowed effortlessly from his imagination on to paper
15 The solos are at the fast tempo and the tune goes out without ever reverting back to the ballad opening. Mclean is joined on the front line by Tina Brooks' tenor, with a Detroit battery of Paul Chambers on bass and Louis Hayes on drums.
16 The blend of two such distinctive timbres as those of McLean & Brooks suggests ULTRA-hard bop. It’s junkie music; as I said earlier, Redd’s music is saturated with a muscular, wounded beauty. (Of course, McLean and Brooks struggled with addiction; I don't know about Redd.
17 Chambers/Hayes provide a far stronger backbone to the music than Mattos/Ritchie. Redd himself is not really a compelling soloist; his calling was as a composer. Some days I think "Shades of Redd" is greater than "The Connection," but I wouldn't want to live without either.
18 Here's another favorite from "Shades of Redd."
19 Coda 1. Just the other day @themikewest wrote about the recent release of the final two recordings by Redd issued during his life for @wcp washingtoncitypaper.com/article/511940…
20 Coda 2. In the mid '80s, not long after I graduated from college at the Univ. of Illinois, a guy came into a club one night when I had a gig. On the break he told me that he had recently moved to town. His day gig was as a hairdresser, but he said he was theater director.
21 He said he had staged The Connection in Paris w/ Freddie Redd & wanted to do it in Urbana-Champaign & was I interested in being a part of it? Hell, yeah! As an alto player, the change to walk in the footsteps of my idol JackieMac & play THAT music?
yes I said yes I will Yes.
yes I said yes I will Yes.
22 Alas, though we exchanged numbers, I don’t remember ever hearing from the cat or seeing him again.
23 There would have been one other interesting symmetry: Gelber had gone to the University of Illinois, and "The Connection" had never been staged in Champaign-Urbana -- still hasn't to my knowledge.
In any case, R.I.P. Freddie Redd. He left the world a more beautiful place.
In any case, R.I.P. Freddie Redd. He left the world a more beautiful place.
24 Coda 3: I should’ve noted earlier Bud Powell’s influence on Redd’s writing. The lyricism & descending sequences of Powell’s “Oblivion” & “I’ll Keep Loving You” MUST have been talismans for Redd. Hearing Jackie play the latter drives the point home.
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