Oceania by Oceania

Dewey Redman - Saxophone, Musette, Vocals (Unknown Tongue)
Skip Hadden - Drums and Cymbals
Lloyd Swanton - Bass

Recorded by Al Biggin for Perth Jazz Society
Monday 24, October, 1994 Hyde Park Hotel, Perth Australia
Digital Restoration by Malcolm Cecil
Produced by Phil Raskin

Album Art by Nabakishore Chanda
Uprising: "The colors symbolizing the strands of life are used here as though in an outburst, suggesting a reaching out towards the ultimate wisdom before merging with eternity."


Album Notes from Lloyd Swanton


Australia really isn't on the international jazz touring circuit. We’re a long way from everywhere else, and places in Australia are a long way from each other. In a continent almost as big as the U.S. with its 333 million souls, or even Europe with its 742 million, Australia’s population numbers a mere 26 million.

This all conspires to make touring here financially unfeasible in many instances.

Consequently, we in Australia never got to see many of the jazz legends. Miles Davis visited just the once, Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor likewise. Monk twice.

So we were very blessed that Dewey Redman, a major figure in the free jazz movement of the 1960s and 1970s who worked with Ornette Coleman, Keith Jarrett, Pat Metheny, and Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, visited Australia four times.

I first heard Dewey when I used to listen to Ornette’s terrific 1968 album, New York Is Now! in the library of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where I was studying. I listened to that album a lot!

Then I met Dewey on the first of his visits, in 1981 with the epochal Old and New Dreams. I was just finding my way in the jazz scene, fresh out of the Conservatorium, and had volunteered to drive around Charlie Haden and his bass. (CHARLIE HADEN!! He was already one of my huge influences on bass.) I got to pump Charlie for insights into music and bass playing. I took him jogging in Sydney’s Domain; ran him to all his gigs and workshops, to the airport when they departed. In the course of this, I also got acquainted with Don Cherry, Ed Blackwell, and Dewey. I was young, and hopefully not too gauche, but Dewey was notably patient and tolerant with this young rube that was taking care of Charlie.

And I was transfixed by the performances of Old and New Dreams; their beautiful “world music” textures, and the extraordinary telepathic understanding these four men displayed. Those shows blew my mind.

Dewey returned in 1986, performing in Sydney with a local ensemble comprising the great Bernie McGann on alto sax, John Pochée on drums, and Geoff Kluke on bass.

Two years later, I was playing with Dewey! Stalwart Melbourne promoter Martin Jackson, in conjunction with Sydney Improvised Music Association, brought him out with drummer Eddie Moore and pianist Geri Allen and asked me to play bass. Wow! This was serious stuff! We tore it up night after night with shows at the Tankerville Arms in Melbourne, a four-night stint at Klub Kakadu in Sydney, and shows in Adelaide and Perth. I had to be on my toes for every second because we climbed to the mountain top every night!

When we rehearsed in Melbourne before the first show, Dewey, Eddie, and Geri were very subdued, having just done the grueling flight from the other side of the world. I wasn't getting much feedback from any of them. The next night, I was on stage at the Tankerville doing a final check of my bass and amp. The place was packed. I was nervous. I had no idea if these three formidable musicians were going to accept me into their circle. I was wearing a very smart suit; it may have been white. I was very conscious that several hundred people were watching me fuss about on stage, in the absence of anything else to look at. I bent down to pick up my bass, and, blinded by a low stage light, didn't see the corner of the piano lid, which I collected hard with my right brow. SMASH! Blood was everywhere, all over my smart suit. I spent the next half hour with an ice pack against my eye, all stage nerves now completely gone. So I did the first show with a giant lump and a sticking plaster on my forehead. It somehow broke the ice with my new colleagues, and the band just soared. (Tip for younger players.)

And then, under the auspices of Sydney Improvised Music Association, there was this fourth tour in 1994 - the most comprehensive of all the visits - where Dewey brought with him the equally formidable Skip Hadden on the drums, and we played in a variety of combinations - as a pianoless trio, or with pianists Barney McAll or Paul Grabowsky. It was quite the tour: the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts, Brisbane, multiple shows at Sydney’s storied Basement, Armidale in country NSW, Perth - where this concert was recorded, Canberra, and the Wangaratta Jazz Festival. Skip and I clicked instantly, personally and on stage. He had played a lot with Dewey, and I had all that experience of the previous tour to draw on. Skip has a beautiful chattering feel, underpinned with a deep driving impetus, and yet again, with Dewey as our redoubtable leader, we climbed mountains every night.

I talked about Australia and its isolation from the rest of the world, and from itself. There is no better exemplar than Perth, a thriving city of two million (1.3 million in 1994 when this concert was recorded) on the west coast of the Australian continent, widely regarded as the most isolated large city in the world. You’ll often hear it said Perth is closer to Singapore than Sydney. And it’s not very close to Singapore!

Still, we went there, to the Hyde Park Hotel on a Monday night, where despite the isolation, the Perth Jazz Society had for years punched above it weight presenting big names to packed houses.

The results are captured on this album, excellently recorded by Al Biggin and digitally restored for release by Malcolm Cecil. It was a memorable night.

Dewey was best known as a free jazz player, a key collaborator in Ornette Coleman’s second phase, but he loved playing standards, and from memory, we opened every night of the tour with Lady Bird. Listen to him just preaching on chorus after chorus. He further showcases his mastery in this area on other standards - The Very Thought Of You, Everything Happens To Me, I Remember You, and a hastily-convened encore in Take The “A" Train.

Dewey’s debt to Ornette is to the fore on Le Clit, an energetic free workout. On Turn Over Baby, he goes off mic for minutes on end as he walked, with his distinctive shuffling gait, out through the delighted crowd and around the entire room, working the blues every step of the way and proudly presenting his credentials. We get to hear Dewey’s inimitable double-reed musette on Unknown Tongue. And some of his… idiosyncratic vocalizing.

Just over a decade later, Dewey sadly left us, gone at 75 from liver failure. But the mark he made with his music is indelible, and this night in Perth, Western Australia - an excellent example of him at the height of his powers - is an unexpected and welcome addition to his legacy.

It was an honour and a privilege to know Dewey, and to make music with him.

Lloyd Swanton
October 4, 2024

Dewey Redman performances: Ornette Coleman, Keith Jarrett, Pat Metheny, and Charlie Haden.
Skip Hadden performances: Bill DeArango, Jimmy Smith, Kenny Werner, Bill Frisell, John Abercrombie, Bill Dobbins, Joe Lovano, Michael Bocian.
Lloyd Swanton performances: Nat Adderly, Jimmy Witherspoon, Barney Kessel, Clifford Jordan, Andrew Hill, Billy Harper, Sheila Jordan, Gary Bartz, Marilyn Crispell.