Joshua Redman | Words Fall Short Review

By Illiam Sebitz

Joshua Redman’s Words Fall Short announces its truths through its clarity in inviting us to experience the music’s openness over closure. It is a harmonic record, but not in the vertical, stacked sense one might associate with a McCoy Tyner flourish or a Gil Evans palette. Instead, the harmony here moves laterally, spaciously, creating resonant rooms for melody to linger, reflect, and breathe steaming from a broader perspective.

Pianist Paul Cornish brings a harmonic style that leans the music forward with plenty of fourths and open intervals, suggesting tonality without pinning it down. Take “Borrowed Eyes,” for example, where Cornish lays down a moving set of voicings that unfold through the form. His touch is light but assured, never crowding Redman’s lines, using each register to suggest color rather than lead. Combined with Philip Norris’ warm, rounded tone on bass and Nazir Ebo’s exquisitely restrained cymbal work, the harmonic bed becomes a landscape of linear motion that is never static, but always breathing.

On “Over the Jelly-Green Sky,” Redman’s compositional language reaches outward toward the modal expansions once explored by groups like Weather Report or ECM-era Charles Lloyd. There is a touch of romantic classical lushness combined with impressionist era abstraction. The improvisations by Cornish and Redman have a sense of folk-like jazz, even as their harmony stretches as they express modern jazz flexibility. The ensemble breathes through tonal centers, touching on lydian and dorian moods with subtle pivots, all while Ebo and Norris keep the pulse pliable.

The title track, “Words Fall Short,” is another harmonically pastel piece Redman has written. Built around a voice lead progression, it demonstrates the strength of melodic and harmonic ebb and flow, contributing to emotional weight. The quartet plays this one with immense listening and interaction. Redman’s soprano sings in long tones, rushing with energy to create energy for the solo’s pinnacle moment.

The album’s opener, “A Message to Unsend,” sets the theme of harmonic directness that feels natural. The melody emerges out of the arpeggiated foundation, subtly colored with Redman’s lyrical and expressive approach. Redman follows melodic pathways in his solo, his lines hovering over tonal centers with gentle cadences and tensions. The result is an album opener that signals the beginning of an unfolding of a dynamic musical expression.

“She Knows” furthers this mood with a free-floating theme that breathes between each phrase. The emotionally grounding theme takes on many harmonic colors. The sensitive performance reflects the quartet’s interactive skills and willingness to listen to the moment and their bandmates to play with space and sound. The harmonic language here is fluid and free.

And then there is “Icarus,” which diverges rhythmically but not harmonically. The playful meter tightens the musical expressive focus, and Skylar Tang’s trumpet weaves a new voice into the texture. The harmonic landscape lands in modal cadences and travels in building expressions of the importance of each note’s desire to either resolve or create fluid tension for future resolution. It’s a setting where harmony does not need to change to evolve; it can shift shape through context and counterpoint between the players naturally.

Throughout Words Fall Short, Redman offers us something voiced to bring the clarity of simplification and refinement to an ensemble that breathes, comments, and listens. It’s an album that invites the listener to approach it with an open awareness. In this space of subtle movement between modern jazz and other genres, the music speaks with a voice that is historically aware, but colored with today’s energies. Words may fall short, but the vibration of music lingers in the soul.

Artist: Joshua Redman
Album: Words Fall Short
Label: Blue Note Records

Release Date: June 20, 2025

About the author

Illiam Sebitz

Born and raised in a picturesque European village, my fondness for music began during my formative years, when the charismatic tones of the recorder first filled the halls of my primary school. This early fascination escalated into my lifelong pursuit of embracing the melodious charm of the flute; I have even spent time refining my skills at a music conservatoire. As a seasoned music connoisseur, I find myself captivated by the multifaceted world of music. I enjoy writing music reviews to better enable me to explore genres as diverse as world, rock, jazz, classical, folk, and film music, each offering a unique auditory journey that enriches my life and intellect.

In my spare moments, you'll likely find me meticulously crafting my latest woodworking project, sharpening my skills with flute etudes, or inventing tales of fantasy through the art of creative writing. My eclectic interests and expertise harmonize to create a symphony of passion and curiosity that resonates within every aspect of my life as a music enthusiast.