Harald Haerter and Dewey Redman: Mostly Live

With instrumentation resembling Paul Motion’s Electric Bebop Band and an individual sound colored by an unmistakable John Scofield vibe, Harald Haerter, a Swiss national, plays decidedly progressive music. Here his regular band is augmented by the presence of Dewey Redman who has regularly played with the group since early 1995 and appears here on four tracks.

The numbers without Redman range from brief, spacey “sound pieces” (“Interlude 1”) to comparatively conventional tunes (“Mute”). Whether Haerter is milking a bizarre tone from his instrument or carving a long line, he impresses with a musical vision that is only marred by his distracting tonal similarity to Scofield. Naturally, the performances that feature Redman, who demonstrates his limitless capacity for improvisational invention on extended forms each time he steps forward, satisfy the most-especially on “Dewey’s Tune” and “Walls Bridges.”

Originally Published April 1, 1997