Album Reviews

Tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter's Blue Note debut features the stellar rhythm section of McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones and Reggie Workman plus Lee Morgan on trumpet. Not a bad way to start a new label debut!

Shorter had issued a few records on Vee-Jay and had been with Art Blakey playing hard bop. Here he moves to a future music that's more contempletive and cerebral but less frantic and other worldly than John Coltrane's though superficially similar given the rhythm section.

Tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter's Blue Note debut features the stellar rhythm section of McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones and Reggie Workman plus Lee Morgan on trumpet. Not a bad way to start a new label debut!

Shorter had issued a few records on Vee-Jay and had been with Art Blakey playing hard bop. Here he moves to a future music that's more contempletive and cerebral but less frantic and other worldly than John Coltrane's though superficially similar given the rhythm section.

A highlight is the lyrical Shorter composition "Virgo," though nothing on this album is less than stellar. The music reflects the time: a period of change, self-examination and reflection in the wake of the Kennedy assassination, plus a new awakening for the black community, musican and non-musician alike.

For my money the contemplative beauty of "Virgo" alone makes this record a worthwhile purchase, though the harder, swinging tunes like "Black Nile" provide their own kick. This record sounds more like a group that had been together for quite some time rather than an arranged session.

The prolific composer Shorter would soon join Miles's second "great" quintet and write some of that group's great compositions. He stayed on to play on "In a Silent Way" and "Bitches Brew" and later became part of Weather Report and an association with Joni Mitchell, among other musical accomplishments. 

While this album is at the intersection of his exiting Art Blakey and joining up with Miles, it's a great record that swings when it wants and needs to and is deep and contemplative when appropriate.

Rudy Van Gelder cooperated too, producing one of his most sonically consistent recordings. Every instrument including the piano is well recorded with the microphones placed sufficiently far from the instruments to produce a great sense of depth, space and transparency.

A superb Music Matters reissue.