REVIEW James Farm @ Ottawa Jazz Festival

Tuesday July 06, 2010

from The Ottawa Citizen

Nostalgia Need Not Apply
By Peter Hum

Over the last week, the TD Ottawa International Jazz Festival’s headliners in Confederation Park usually had the power of nostalgia going for them, winning listeners to their side.

That wasn’t the case with the co-op band James Farm, which played the park Friday night.

Unlike the groups of Herbie Hancock or John Scofield or Roy Hargrove, the quartet, whose frontman was the celebrated saxophonist Joshua Redman, didn’t play covers of classic tunes or harken back to jazz of decades ago.

Instead of nostalgia, the group stressed the here and now, with finely wrought, moody, original music.

And the Confederation Park crowd was entranced by the music just the same.

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