Following last year's orchestral ensemble-backed recording Walking Shadows, featuring a set entirely made up of ballads, Redman has pared things right down to a trio for his new release. It's also a blow; a live date with tracks selected from two documented recordings over three years apart, at the Jazz Standard in 2009 and Blues Alley in 2013 with an ace band featuring the explosive Greg Hutchinson on drums on both dates, Matt Penman on the bass on the earlier gig and regular collaborator Reuben Rogers, the latter. Anyone who's seen Redman, especially live, will know about his forceful sonic presence and eloquence at reinvigorating a familiar jazz language while always remaining mindful of its more contemporary shifts. While most resembling the late 1950s Sonny Rollins trio on ‘Moritat (Mack The Knife)’ as well as on an original ‘Act Natural’, the trio depart from the norm, rocking out on Led Zeppelin's ‘The Ocean’, Redman, in sax monologue, slap tonguing a bass line on the intro while riffing a melody, like a rawer, bluesier version of the young Norwegian saxophonist Marius Neset. Redman's Coltrane influenced ‘Mantra #5’ also appeared on 2007's Back East, his only previous acoustic sax-bass-drums album but comparing the two, in this ‘live’ setting Redman on soprano and his flexibly in-the-pocket rhythmic partners, seem to capture more of its essence.

Jazzwisespoke to Joshua Redman about the album

What especially attracts you to the sax trio setting and why record ‘live’?

I love the freedom of the trio setting – harmonic, melodic, rhythmic, textural, structural. It's an incredibly challenging format, but when I'm playing with such amazing musicians as Greg, Reuben and Matt, and everyone is connected, and everything is clicking, trio can be one of the most liberating and fulfilling improvisational experiences. I wanted to take some of the opportunities we had to try to document the live vibe of the trio, since it was the format I was working in the most at that time, and our approach and sound was constantly evolving. Also, I was aware that there was an aspect of our trio playing that could probably only be realised in a live setting.

Are there any role models for you that really stand out in the sax trio setting?

Sonny Rollins' trios from the late 1950s through the 60s. Joe Henderson's in the 80s. Branford Marsalis's in the 90s. Joe Lovano has done some amazing trio work over the years. Too many to list all of them here.

The most unusual tune on Trios Live is your take on Led Zep's ‘The Ocean’. Do you listen to rock and are there any differences in the way you approach such a song compared to a standard?

In addition to soul, R&B, hip hop, and of course jazz, I listened to quite a bit of rock music growing up in particular The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, The Police, Prince if you consider him partly ‘rock’. And then I was listening to a fair amount of ‘grunge’ rock in the early 90s: Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, bands like that. And more recently ‘Brit Pop’ bands like Radiohead, Oasis, even Coldplay. But for me there is really no qualitative difference between the way I approach a rock song, or a more traditional jazz ‘standard’. What matters to me is that I'm inspired and intrigued by a particular song, wherever it comes from, and I feel that particular song has the potential to work well in a particular musical context, with a particular band, through a particular approach. If I'm playing a song, I'm trying to remain true to something of the original spirit of the song, but hopefully at the same time finding something new and original, or at least interesting, in our particular interpretation. I definitely don't feel I'm in any way taking some sort of ‘ideological’ approach to playing non-traditional jazz tunes. I'm not trying to make any sort of statement. All you should do is follow your own true path, wherever that leads you.