Just use redis.Redis. It uses a connection pool under the hood, so you don't have to worry about managing at that level.

If you absolutely have to use a low level connection, you need to do the response handling that is normally done for you by redis.Redis.

Here's an example of executing a single command using the low level connection:

def execute_low_level(command, *args, **kwargs):

    connection = redis.Connection(**kwargs)

    try:

        connection.connect()

        connection.send_command(command, *args)

        response = connection.read_response()

        if command in redis.Redis.RESPONSE_CALLBACKS:

            return redis.Redis.RESPONSE_CALLBACKS[command](response)

        return response

    finally:

        del connection

Example usage:

response = execute_low_level(

        'HGET', 'redis:key', 'hash:key', host='localhost', port=6379)

But as I said before, redis.Redis is the way to go in 99.9% of cases.

def execute_command(self, *args, **options):

    "Execute a command and return a parsed response"

    pool = self.connection_pool

    command_name = args[0]

    connection = pool.get_connection(command_name, **options)

    try:

        connection.send_command(*args)

        return self.parse_response(connection, command_name, **options)

    except (ConnectionError, TimeoutError) as e:

        connection.disconnect()

        if not connection.retry_on_timeout and isinstance(e, TimeoutError):

            raise

        connection.send_command(*args)

        return self.parse_response(connection, command_name, **options)

    finally:

        pool.release(connection)