On The Struggle Continues bop, blues and free jazz effortlessly mingle. The tenor saxophonist Dewey Redman has a wonderfully expressive voice on his horn whether playing in or out, and this album, which was originally released in 1982, references various aspects of his career. (Redman is probably best known for his stints with Ornette Coleman and Keith Jarrett.) On a track like “Combinations,” he plays a great free solo, but never rambles; the emotive outpouring has a sense of sharp focus and fluid shape. In contrast, “Turn Over Baby” finds him digging into his Texas roots and blowing some fine blues. The whole band sounds great on the longest track, “Love Is,” a ballad in the Coltrane mode. And an excellent band it is: pianist Charles Eubanks, bassist Mark Helias, and the truly extraordinary drummer Ed Blackwell, who played with Redman in Coleman’s band. Blackwell swings like mad, and he’s always upending rhythms in exciting ways. The album features five Redman originals (“Thren” sounds like a deftly integrated combination of bebop and Kurt Weill) and the album closes with a spirited cover of Charlie Parker’s “Dewey Square.”