By Sara Bennett Kansan staff writer
Joshua Redman didn't set out to be a jazz musician. He studied pre-law at Harvard and was accepted at Yale Law School. Occasionally during his pursuit of scholarly achievement, he would play a gig or two with his tenor saxophone, but he rarely practiced.
"If anything, I was on a track in a completely opposite direction," Redman said in a phone interview from a Philadelphia hotel. "Part of me knew all along that I would love music, but I was afraid to pursue it because when you love something so much, your whole soul is at stake."
Today, Redman's soul has him headlining his own jazz quartet that includes renowned jazz guitarist Pat Metheny. The Joshua Redman Quartet will be playing at 7:30 and 10:30 p.m. Wednesday at Liberty Hall, 642 Massachusetts St.
Redman is a hot young jazz talent, said Dan Galley, University of Kansas director of jazz studies.
"He's one of the most startling young jazz musicians since Wynton Marsalis," Gailey said. "He's playing at a maturity
level that's unusual for his age."
Redman is 24, an age when most hopeful musicians are standing in line to audition for commercials. But while his peers were waiting tables and practicing, Redman was graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard — and listening to a lot of jazz.
"The irony is, when I got to Harvard, I had no time to play," he said, "but that's when I spent the most energy and time listening."
Redman has been listening since he was small. The son of noted saxophonist Dewey Redman, Joshua Redman grew up listening to his father's records as well as artists such as Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and Dexter Gordon. He was also fond of pop music and rhythm-and-blues.
Redman said that his father's true influence was to show him how tough the life of a musician can be.
"I could see that he was a great musician who had never gotten the acclaim he deserved," he said. "So I realized that music will never guarantee any stability or income. Jazz isn't something you do for the money, you do it because you love it."
Redman loved it. Although he spent
his practice time studying for a career in civil-rights law or social work, Redman could not get away from jazz. After graduating from Harvard in 1991, he took a year off from school and moved to Brooklyn where he began playing and practicing regularly.
In November 1991, Redman won the Thelonius Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition. That honor led to a Warner Bros. contract and performances or recordings with such jazz greats as Pat Metheny, Big Band, Charlie Haden and Hingem Dynasty. He was also voted Best New Artist in the 1992 Jazz Times reader's poll. His latest album, "Wish," has won rave reviews.
Redman said he is committed to soulful expression in his music.
"Soulfulness is honesty and a general dedication to music and giving of yourself," he said.
He calls "musical storytelling."
"All music, especially jazz, should take the listener on a journey," he said. "There should be a narrative. Not an intellectual one but more like a really far-out short story or experimental novel."
This commitment to excellence helped Redman create the Joshua Redman Quartet, an acoustic combo featuring bass player Christian McBride, drummer Billy Higgins and Metheny.
"Pat is really floored by Joshua's talents," said Galley. "For him to take time out of his busy schedule to play with a younger musician is huge. Metheny is one of the most critically and commercially successful jazz artists today."
Chuck Berg, director of film studies and jazz writer for The Lawrence Journal-World, Jazz Times and Downbeat, saw the Joshua Redman Quartet at the Village Vanguard in New York City during the annual Jazz Times Convention two weeks ago. Berg said Redman impressed the standing-room-only crowd of jazz writers and critics.
"The band is absolutely terrific," Berg said. "The attitude of the audience was 'show us, kid,' and Josh's quartet showed us with flying colors. Every solo, every tune — everyone just went out of their heads."
The Joshua Redman Quartet will be touring through November 1. Tickets for the band's two performances Wednesday are $16.50 in advance and $18 at the door. They are available at TICKETMASTER locations and at Liberty Hall.
people
Although dreams are purelybiological, they can address important issues in a person's life.
We're all dreamers—at night anyway
By Sara Bennett
Kansan staff writer
Craig Workman, Osawatonie freshman, stands in the post-apocalyptic ruins of the Olathe Medical Center, defending a maiden-in-distress from unseen bad guys. Just when he thinks he has killed the enemy, Workman feels a thump in his chest. He has been shot. As Workman watches himself die, the date suddenly comes to him: August 17, 2023.
Then he wakes up. It was just a dream.
"They scare me," Workman said of his dreams, which he said often came true. Although most people may not be able to predict the end of the world through their dreams, many believe dreams hold the keys to the inner
What exactly are dreams, and what causes us to have them?
"It used to be thought dreams were caused by internal tensions that needed to be solved," said Charles Hallenbeck, professor of psychology. Hallenbeck teaches a course on the psychology of sleep and dreaming. "But, in fact, it's a very basic biological process that is clocklike in nature."
Hallenbeck explained that in the early 1950s, researchers in sleep labs at the University of Chicago studied the brain waves of sleeping people. They found that, during deep sleep, the brain waves slowed down. Approximately every 90 minutes, however, the brain waves sped up to waking levels. During these periods,
workings of the mind and soul.
the eyes moved rapidly back and forth in a process called REM, or rapid eye movement. People who were awakened during this period said they had been dreaming.
Hallenbeck said everyone dreams every night at regular 90 minute intervals regardless of whether they remember their dreams.
Although dreams are purely biological, Hallenbeck said, they could sometimes be meaningful. Dreaming gives the brain the chance to sort out problems in a safe and imaginative setting, he said. Occasionally, dreams will address important issues in a person's life.
"It's like the process by which a computer sorts through its data base and throws out unneeded junk," Halleenbeck said. "Sleep may be the time
when we clean up our acts and get out the garbage."
Evidence exists that people actually need to dream, Hallenbeck said. In experiments depriving people of REM sleep, subjects became edgy and irritable. The next night, they spent even more time dreaming.
"It's as if there were a real need or appetite for that experience," he said.
appetite for that experience, he said. That experience of dreaming can aid in understanding the inner workings of the psyche, said Pam Botts, a psychologist with Counseling and Psychological Services at Watkins Memorial Health Center.
"I often think of dreams as a way to communicate with ourselves," she said. "It's a reflection of the internal
See DREAMS, Page 10.
Issues and trends at the University of Kansas.
Woman identifies prank caller's burp as her ex-lover's
Avoidthose "crossbowrapists"
In July in Bristol, Conn., Kathleen Driscoll filed a formal complaint accusing ex-lover Richard LaMothe of being the person who made a series of harassing phone calls to her. In addition to telephone company records that tended to support her charge, Driscoll said that one call, in March, consisted only of silence punctuated by a very large belch, which Driscoll positively identified as LaMothe's.
Alphonso Johnson Quinn, 36, was arrested near Bowie, Md. in September and accused of police of being the "crossbow rapist" who had terrorized several women in their homes. According to Police Chief David Mitchell, Quinn committed the crimes to improve his business. He sold "home security systems," and his sales literature referred to the need for protection from the crossbow rapist.
is that fair?
A judge in Riverside, Calif., ruled in September that David Reese, 39, must pay his ex-wife $982 a month in child support for their two children, aged 9 and 5, even though he recently during the heated divorce proceeding that the children were really fathered by a "family friend" and are not his.
Third time's acharm
Reiniero Torres Jr., 83, twice this year successfully defended himself in court in Sebring, Fla., first on a worthless-check charge and then for assault. However, in August, on a third charge, for theft, for which he also acted as his own lawyer, he lost. A jury convicted him of having stolen from the courthouse library the books he had used in preparing his defense to the first two charges.
The halls of justice?
In April, Baltimore circuit judge Thomas Bollinger rejected a recommended 20-year prison sentence and instead sentenced a man only to probation on a rape conviction. Bollinger's rational was that because the woman and the man were friends and she was raped only after she voluntarily laid down on his bed fully clothed to sleep off a drink binge, it was not really rape. Analogizing the matter to a property crime, the judge said, if "I grab your purse," it's "rob-
See WEIRD,Page 10.
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