WORDS FALL SHORT REVIEWS

The Guardian

Joshua Redman has been such a brilliant saxophone improviser for more than three decades that his unerring flawlessness at a spontaneous art almost becomes a tic. But his playful delight in music-making, a quality that swept from his eponymous debut release in 1993, has never faded The opening A Message to Unsend stretches from a wistful tenor melody over a softly rolling piano ostinato through a Jarrett-trio-like feel and back, while the brisker So It Goes features a delightfully entwined and cool-jazzy duet between Redman’s and Aldana’s saxes. The shrewdly structured Icarus balances a steadily descending sax/trumpet theme with a rising countermelody; it heads the opposite way amid clattering percussion, sparking dramatic crescendos that the spirited Tang eagerly exploits. The beautiful ballad Borrowed Eyes (the title taken from Cormac McCarthy’s The Road) joins Redman’s deep, wide-spaced tenor whisper with Phil Norris’s softly plucked bass solo, and Gabrielle Cavassa’s vocal on the closing Era’s End signs off a very classy Redman set with an exquisite vocal/tenor unison passage.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jun/27/joshua-redman-words-fall-short-album-review

Record Collector – titan Joshua Redman showcases his new quartet with Words Fall Short. By turns meditative and athletic…

MOJO – Redman defies complacency on Words Fall Short, a platform for the intuitive shadow-play of his new quartet…

Post Genre - The overall reflective and contemplative aura of Words Fall Short fits with the fact that Redman composed these tunes during the pandemic. Nonetheless, the highly lyrical execution and the introduction of this new quartet make it a listen you will likely return to when the mood beckons.

https://postgenre.org/words-fail-joshua-redman/

Everything Jazz Poignant, beautiful, hopeful music. Music that – as magicked by Redman, one of jazz’s greatest living saxophonists, composers and band leaders – required animating, needed hearing.

https://www.everythingjazz.com/story/joshua-redman-words-fall-short/

The Jazz World Words Fall Short opens and closes like a mirrored meditation, with “A Message to Unsend” and “Era’s End” forming a lyrical palindrome that bookmarks the album’s arc. These two tracks are thematic anchors of the melding of styles and emotions as they are reflections of intention and closure.

https://thejazzword.com/2025/07/joshua-redman-words-fall-short-review/

Jazz Musical Archives What makes "Words Fall Short" hit is its ensemble chemistry. It's not about flash, and it's not about nostalgia. It's about four musicians (and three carefully chosen guests) making real-time music with ears wide open. Redman, now decades into his career, sounds as engaged as ever because he's surrounding himself with players who bring out new shades of his sound. This album isn't a shout. It's a conversation. And if you're really listening, it says plenty.

https://www.jazzmusicarchives.com/review/words-fall-short/574938