MoodSwing

MoodSwing (1994) captured these four in the middle of their separate ascents. MehldauBrad Mehldauブラッド・メルドー, McBrideChristian McBrideクリスチャン・マクブライド, and BladeBrian Bladeブライアン・ブレイド each went on to build defining careers of their own. In 2020 the same band reunited as RoundAgain.

In 1994, a 24-year-old and still largely unknown Brad Mehldau appeared on Joshua Redman's MoodSwing — two years before his own Art of the Trio series began the career that made him one of the most acclaimed pianists in jazz.

Kenny Garrett's 1996 tribute record Pursuance has no pianist: the chords are carried by Pat Metheny's guitar, in a quartet of sax, guitar, bass and drums. The drum chair went to Brian Blade, then in his mid-twenties and still two years away from his own first album as a leader. By 2013 he was the drummer on Wayne Shorter's Without a Net.

Joshua Redman was set to enter Yale Law School in 1991 when he won the Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Competition instead and abandoned law. The following year, before releasing anything under his own name, he turned up as an unknown sideman on Elvin Jones's Youngblood (1992).