Saxophonist Joshua Redman, born 1969, and pianist Brad Mehldau, born 1970, have gone a long way together. Even as young and wild musicians in the early nineties, they played together in Redman’s celebrated quartet. Since then, the musical paths of these two prized and acclaimed stars have repeatedly crossed in different constellations—and on numerous occasions also at Enjoy Jazz. In 2008, they performed as a duo for the first time, a great moment in the Festival’s history: the way Redman and Mehldau sublimely shared their inspirations, propelled each other into more and more extravagant improvisations, brought their two very different voices together and meanderingly pursued the most fleeting ideas to extract something masterful, and then drove each other into peak performances with their energy—was a fantastic experience and showed their deeply artistic connection. The duo project, started as an initiative by Enjoy Jazz Festival Director Rainer Kern in Mannheim, has been ongoing over the last years. So now they return: a rendezvous in “musical altitudes” as the NZZ once wrote, an ignited encounter between “expressive intimacy and unbridled joy of playing”.
