Joshua Redman has always had a way of sounding up the middle without being boring, which—easier said than done. Recorded as a new quartet with pianist Paul Cornish, bassist Philip Norris, and drummer Nazir Ebo, 2025’s Words Fall Short is, in the rough breakdown of his discography, one of Redman’s more straightforwardly “jazz” releases, grounded in tradition but never bogged down by it, combining blues-ish ballads (“Borrowed Eyes”), solemn, ’70s-style Eurojazz (“A Message to Unsend”), and the dazzling lightness of post-bop/pre-free Coltrane (“Words Fall Short”) with a coolness and erudition that makes even edgy moments feel smooth. Special mention to the back-and-forth with saxophonist Melissa Aldana on “So It Goes” and the near-dissonances of “She Knows,” both of which point toward the avant-garde while remaining firmly, comfortably in the jazz mainstream. Yes, he colors inside the lines—but he makes those lines vibrate with life.