On a chilly midweek night, with no pre-publicity and the credit crunch in full bite, Ronnie’s was rammed to the rafters for the opening of this three-date gig. Class will always tell, apparently, yet eyebrows were raised because Joshua Redman’s piano-less trio is never an easy listen.

“Good to see y’all,” smiled Redman, whose habit of sucking his teeth between phrases recalled Woody Allen. Likened to Barack Obama for his mixed-race background and top-bracket Harvard law degree, Joshua was all set to become a courtroom shark until the example of his father, avant-garde tenorist Dewey Redman, proved too strong.

He studied all the saxophone greats before homing in on Sonny Rollins and Way Out West, the iconic album which made tenor-sax-plus-rhythm an artistic reality. Persisting with this lonely format, Redman used bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Greg Hutchinson, a brilliant rhythm team borrowed from singer Dianne Reeves.

They played a standard (Surrey with the Fringe on Top), an original (Insomnomaniac) and a Thelonious Monk classic (Trinkle Tinkle), and while Redman’s technique on tenor and soprano sax was flawless, there were occasional draughts that only the mighty sound of Sonny could fill.
Until tomorrow (020 7439 0747