Wayne Shorter- Adam's Apple (1966) https://youtu.be/eYZtHtL3zXc Original Liner Notes: It hasn't been very long since jazz music represented just one thing to the general audience: the sound of the nightlife. The list of television shows that found jazz the perfect accompanimentfor scenes of violence and fast action is too familiar to mention. Yet in recent years jazz finally has come to fill a broader spectrum of experience, even for the most casual listener. Curiously, and perhaps appropriately, this filling out of the emotional color wheel has come at a time when young jazz men have been accused of a monochromatic brand of self-expression. That such is not the case is clearly revealed in this set by the Wayne Shorter group in music performed with great subtlety and almost gentle underplaying by a collection of extraordinary young jazz musicians.
For the last seven or eight years now, Wayne Shorter has been carefully but surely building a career as a creative professional jazz performer. Recognition of his skills began as early as November of 1959, when LeRoi Jones wrote of Shorter in the Jazz Review: "He is, now, almost at [the third... critical stage of his career: the Innovator." More recently Shorter has been an enormously valuable member of the Miles Davis Quintet, a difficult assignment for any player. But Shorter has survived and prospered; early in 1967 he was commissioned to write an 18-minute orchestral prelude for the Davis group performance at the Los Angeles Jazz Festival at U.C.L.A., incorporating several of Davis' better-known themes. His selection reflects an increasing general awareness of Shorter's skills as a composer and arranger, an awareness further emphasized by the inclusion in this collection of five Shorter originals.
To make the circumstances even more felicitous, Shorter has chosen a particularly responsive group of sidemen. Herbie Hancock's accomplishments over the last few years have been so numerous that it would take the rest of this brief space just to list them. Suffice to say that he works brilliantly with Shorter, the familiar atmosphere of their association in the Davis group enlivening and brightening their work here. Reggie Workman has long been a player too little appreciated for the scope of his talents. Joe Chambers has played in most of the new jazz groups, often under pretty extraordinary circumstances. Yet his work with Shorter seems to be filled with a special warmth and imagination.
The remarkable thing is not so much that these are all fine
young jazz players, but that they are individually and collectively mature enough to play with such effective "point" to their performance. Young artists usually are filled with the turbulent juices of early enthusiasms, but only the rare ones can channel these drives—reducing them not one whit in their meaningfulness or intensity—into an expression that touches the many sources of internal expression.
Adam's Apple, the title tune, represents in its own way a kind of universal contemporary sound—jazz and the elan of dance music combined, an updating of the most familiar blues, and a vehicle for the romping journeys of the pop parade.
502 Blues, the only tune not written by Shorter, cannot technically be called a blues. It is, however, a perfectly lovely line that retains the essence (and even the fragility) of the modern genre of late-night, urban blues. Shorter plays delicately, framing his phrases above a nearly suspended rhythmic pulse, ending in a cascading passage immediately picked up by Hancock and Workman. Notice Hancock's touch, the way he almost lovingly coaxes his own sound from what can be, in lesser hands, an impersonal instrument. And notice, too, Chambers' sensitive accompaniment, a marvel of underplaying in an age of drummers who grasp their dynamic levels with rough hands.
Another shorter original, El Gaucho, closes the first side of the record. It might be called a sort of jazz bossa nova (listen for Chambers' eighth note figures), but its sudden and unexpected chord changes lead the players into areas rarely explored in the style's more popular form. Hancock's comping proves that a strong and individual accompanist can more than compensate for the absence of guitar.
Back to the blues on Side 2: Footprints, another Shorter original, explores the six-eight form in dark, walking fashion, with some special Shorter chord alterations. Aside from Shorter's predictably fine chorus, notice the crisp cross-rhythms toward the end of Hancock's solo. And listen to Workman's remarkable, well-articulated lines (also on Teru), played with a clarity that might more easily be produced on an electric bass.
Teru reveals yet another facet of Shorter's work, the ability to write a highly sophisticated contemporary ballad. Shorter solos feelingly, his voice-like lines underscored by Hancock's moving chordal figures.
Chief Crazy Horse reflects a trace of the affection Shorter still feels for John Coltrane in a line that is filled with recurrent pedals and unpredictable harmonic movement. Chambers has an opportunity to stretch out, again demonstrating his understanding of the values of contrast and dynamic variation.
That Shorter has the talent and technique to do almost anything he wants seems apparent. A great deal of his work in this collection is eminently satisfying on any level. But it is an even finer achievement in totality, since it provides us with such a revealing cross-section of that rarest of qualities, youthful artistic maturity.
-DON HECKMAN
Jazz Editor, American Record Guide
Cover Photo by FRANCIS WOLFF Cover Design by REID MILES Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER
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Wayne Shorter- Adam's Apple (1966)
https://youtu.be/eYZtHtL3zXc
Original Liner Notes:
It hasn't been very long since jazz music represented just one thing to the general audience: the sound of the nightlife. The list of television shows that found jazz the perfect accompanimentfor scenes of violence and fast action is too familiar to mention. Yet in recent years jazz finally has come to fill a broader spectrum of experience, even for the most casual listener. Curiously, and perhaps appropriately, this filling out of the emotional color wheel has come at a time when young jazz men have been accused of a monochromatic brand of self-expression. That such is not the case is clearly revealed in this set by the Wayne Shorter group in music performed with great subtlety and almost gentle underplaying by a collection of extraordinary young jazz musicians.
For the last seven or eight years now, Wayne Shorter has been carefully but surely building a career as a creative professional jazz performer. Recognition of his skills began as early as November of 1959, when LeRoi Jones wrote of Shorter in the Jazz Review: "He is, now, almost at [the third... critical stage of his career: the Innovator." More recently Shorter has been an enormously valuable member of the Miles Davis Quintet, a difficult assignment for any player. But Shorter has survived and prospered; early in 1967 he was commissioned to write an 18-minute orchestral prelude for the Davis group performance at the Los Angeles Jazz Festival at U.C.L.A., incorporating several of Davis' better-known themes. His selection reflects an increasing general awareness of Shorter's skills as a composer and arranger, an awareness further emphasized by the inclusion in this collection of five Shorter originals.
To make the circumstances even more felicitous, Shorter has chosen a particularly responsive group of sidemen. Herbie Hancock's accomplishments over the last few years have been so numerous that it would take the rest of this brief space just to list them. Suffice to say that he works brilliantly with Shorter, the familiar atmosphere of their association in the Davis group enlivening and brightening their work here. Reggie Workman has long been a player too little appreciated for the scope of his talents. Joe Chambers has played in most of the new jazz groups, often under pretty extraordinary circumstances. Yet his work with Shorter seems to be filled with a special warmth and imagination.
The remarkable thing is not so much that these are all fine
young jazz players, but that they are individually and collectively mature enough to play with such effective "point" to their performance. Young artists usually are filled with the turbulent juices of early enthusiasms, but only the rare ones can channel these drives—reducing them not one whit in their meaningfulness or intensity—into an expression that touches the many sources of internal expression.
Adam's Apple, the title tune, represents in its own way a kind of universal contemporary sound—jazz and the elan of dance music combined, an updating of the most familiar blues, and a vehicle for the romping journeys of the pop parade.
502 Blues, the only tune not written by Shorter, cannot technically be called a blues. It is, however, a perfectly lovely line that retains the essence (and even the fragility) of the modern genre of late-night, urban blues. Shorter plays delicately, framing his phrases above a nearly suspended rhythmic pulse, ending in a cascading passage immediately picked up by Hancock and Workman. Notice Hancock's touch, the way he almost lovingly coaxes his own sound from what can be, in lesser hands, an impersonal instrument. And notice, too, Chambers' sensitive accompaniment, a marvel of underplaying in an age of drummers who grasp their dynamic levels with rough hands.
Another shorter original, El Gaucho, closes the first side of the record. It might be called a sort of jazz bossa nova (listen for Chambers' eighth note figures), but its sudden and unexpected chord changes lead the players into areas rarely explored in the style's more popular form. Hancock's comping proves that a strong and individual accompanist can more than compensate for the absence of guitar.
Back to the blues on Side 2: Footprints, another Shorter original, explores the six-eight form in dark, walking fashion, with some special Shorter chord alterations. Aside from Shorter's predictably fine chorus, notice the crisp cross-rhythms toward the end of Hancock's solo. And listen to Workman's remarkable, well-articulated lines (also on Teru), played with a clarity that might more easily be produced on an electric bass.
Teru reveals yet another facet of Shorter's work, the ability to write a highly sophisticated contemporary ballad. Shorter solos feelingly, his voice-like lines underscored by Hancock's moving chordal figures.
Chief Crazy Horse reflects a trace of the affection Shorter still feels for John Coltrane in a line that is filled with recurrent pedals and unpredictable harmonic movement. Chambers has an opportunity to stretch out, again demonstrating his understanding of the values of contrast and dynamic variation.
That Shorter has the talent and technique to do almost anything he wants seems apparent. A great deal of his work in this collection is eminently satisfying on any level. But it is an even finer achievement in totality, since it provides us with such a revealing cross-section of that rarest of qualities, youthful artistic maturity.
-DON HECKMAN
Jazz Editor, American Record Guide
Cover Photo by FRANCIS WOLFF
Cover Design by REID MILES
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER
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