Wayne Shorter

Shorter was twenty-six and had just finished an Army stint when he walked into the studio for his first date as a leader, and the quintet assembled around him reads like a who's-who of the late-1950s hard bop scene. Lee Morgan was burning brighter than anyone his age, Wynton Kelly had the loosest, most propulsive swing in jazz piano, and the Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb rhythm section was what Miles Davis trusted behind him every night. On paper it was almost unfair.

The record delivers what the lineup promises: hard bop played with real authority, built on Shorter compositions that already signal something different from the standard issue of the day. The tunes have an odd angularity in their melodies, harmonic movements that don't resolve where you expect them to. Kelly navigates all of it with his characteristic ease, and Morgan burns on every track, but the personality most clearly defined here is Shorter's. His tone on tenor was never smooth in the conventional sense; it had a slightly reedy dryness that cut through the ensemble like nothing else.

There is nothing yet on this record to prepare you for JuJu or Speak No Evil, but that was always going to be true of a debut. What the record establishes is a writer and player of unusual seriousness, one whose ambitions were already pointing somewhere beyond the conventions of the style he was working in.

Shorter had joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers by the time this was recorded, and the Blakey connection runs through the whole session. Blakey himself is on drums, his propulsive, polyrhythmic approach charging the music in ways that Jimmy Cobb's steadier swing on the debut had not. Cedar Walton is a revelation throughout, his harmonically sophisticated comping giving Shorter the kind of support that opens up the improvisational space rather than filling it in.

The compositions here are a step forward from the debut. "Callaway Went Thataway" has the kind of catchy, slightly bent melody that would become a Shorter hallmark, the kind of tune that is immediately memorable and yet resists easy categorization. Shorter himself is developing the slightly speech-like quality in his phrasing that would become one of his most distinctive characteristics, and without a trumpet in the front line, the quartet format puts his tenor in an exposed position that he handles with increasing confidence.

Second Genesis sits comfortably alongside the Blakey Messengers records from this period, which is high praise. Shorter was at this point one of the most important composers in the Messengers' book, and this session documents why: he was writing music that had the Messengers' fire while reaching toward something more harmonically complex.

The third Vee-Jay record brings in Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, and the difference in energy level from the debut is immediately apparent. Hubbard, still in his early twenties, was playing with the volcanic intensity that would define his early Blue Note work, and the combination of his fierce trumpet with Shorter's more oblique tenor creates a front line of genuine distinction. Jymie Merritt, a fellow Messenger, anchors the bottom end with authority.

The compositions continue to develop Shorter's distinctive approach. "Marie Antoinette" is the standout, its melody built on intervals that sound simultaneously logical and surprising, the kind of tune where the more you listen the more you find. Eddie Higgins is a somewhat underrated presence on this record, his pianism clean and intelligent without calling too much attention to itself, giving Shorter and Hubbard room to expand. Marshall Thompson keeps the pulse moving with a steady, unobtrusive swing.

This is the last of the Vee-Jay sessions, and listening to the three records together you can trace a clear development: from the polished debut through the Blakey-fueled fire of Second Genesis to the more assertive approach here. The Blue Note years were about to begin, and you can hear Shorter getting ready for them.

The first Blue Note record and a genuine leap forward. The Vee-Jay albums were excellent hard bop; Night Dreamer is something else, a record where the compositions and the playing have entered a different zone of sophistication. Shorter had been studying harmony intensively, listening to contemporary classical music and thinking hard about how to bring that structural thinking into jazz without draining out the heat and swing. Night Dreamer is where those ideas start to cohere.

McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones bring their Coltrane Quartet association into this session, and the fit with Shorter's music is perfect. Tyner's dense, quartal voicings under Shorter's saxophone create a harmonic atmosphere unlike anything in the Vee-Jay recordings, while Jones's drumming creates the same surging polyrhythmic backdrop he provided in Coltrane's band. Lee Morgan is brilliant here, adapting his hardbop directness to the more mysterious compositional environment without losing any of his fire.

Night Dreamer announces the arrival of a major composer-improviser working at the highest level of the music, and it does so with a confidence that never feels forced. Every note sounds inevitable after the fact, which is the hallmark of great compositional thinking. The Blue Note period was about to produce some of the most important records in jazz, and this is where it begins.

No trumpet. Just Shorter's tenor saxophone, McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman, and Elvin Jones, and the result is one of the most intense and focused records in post-bop jazz. The decision to strip away the front line is not an act of economy; it is an act of total confidence. Shorter had enough compositional ideas and enough improvisational authority to fill the space that a trumpet would normally occupy, and the quartet format demands that each musician contribute to the collective sound more fully than a quintet arrangement allows.

The compositions are more abstract than Night Dreamer, their harmonic logic more difficult to trace on first listening. But JuJu rewards patient engagement. "JuJu" itself opens the record with a melody that seems to gather force as it moves, Tyner's left-hand voicings and Workman's bass creating a foundation that is harmonically dense without being static. By the time Jones enters fully, the music has built to a collective intensity that few jazz records of the period match.

This is the first of Shorter's absolute masterpieces as a leader. The Coltrane Quartet connection is audible throughout, but JuJu is not an imitation of Coltrane's approach; it is a parallel response to the same musical problems, arrived at through a fundamentally different compositional sensibility. Where Coltrane built toward transcendence through accretion, Shorter constructed mysteries and left them unresolved.

This is the record most listeners reach for first when they discover Wayne Shorter, and the instinct is correct. Speak No Evil is the most immediately accessible of his Blue Note albums while still operating at the compositional level of JuJu or Night Dreamer. The quintet of Shorter, Hubbard, Hancock, Carter, and Jones is arguably the most accomplished group he assembled during this period, five musicians at the absolute peak of their individual powers, each contributing something irreplaceable to the collective sound.

Herbie Hancock's piano playing on this record is extraordinary, his comping under Shorter's solos a masterclass in how to support without constraining. He voices chords in ways that imply multiple harmonic interpretations simultaneously, leaving Shorter free to choose his path through the changes. Ron Carter's bass anchors the ensemble with the kind of understated authority that only becomes fully apparent when you try to imagine the record without him. Freddie Hubbard burns on every track, but it is Shorter's saxophone that gives the record its character: searching, slightly melancholy, deeply focused.

Recorded on Christmas Eve 1964, released two years later, Speak No Evil is the record that most fully realizes the potential announced in Night Dreamer. If you are going to own one Wayne Shorter Blue Note album, this is the one, though owning just one would be an act of serious self-deprivation.

The largest ensemble Shorter led during his Blue Note period, expanded to a septet with trombone and alto saxophone added to the core quintet. The expansion is not mere decoration; Shorter uses the additional voices to write more complex contrapuntal textures, the four horns weaving together in ways that recall the dense arrangements of the Gil Evans orchestral records while remaining firmly in the post-bop language of the preceding Blue Note albums.

Grachan Moncur III on trombone is the key addition, his instrument's darker timbre providing a counterweight to Hubbard's trumpet that reshapes the ensemble sound completely. James Spaulding on alto and flute adds a nimbleness to the upper register that Shorter's tenor doesn't cover. The compositions themselves continue the trajectory of the Blue Note years: "Genesis" and "Mephistopheles" have the same compressed, mysterious quality as the best tracks from JuJu and Speak No Evil, but deployed in a larger format that opens new textural possibilities.

The All Seeing Eye is not quite at the level of JuJu or Speak No Evil, partly because the larger ensemble creates logistics that occasionally constrain the collective improvisation. But it is essential for understanding the full scope of Shorter's Blue Note ambitions, and the writing here is as sophisticated as anything in the period.

Back to the quartet format and arguably Shorter's most compositionally varied Blue Note album. Adam's Apple contains some of his most groove-oriented writing alongside some of his most abstract, and the juxtaposition doesn't feel incoherent because the playing is so consistently at the highest level. "Footprints" is here in its original recording, and hearing it in this context is a reminder that it was not written as a piece of accessible jazz but as one more entry in Shorter's ongoing compositional project.

Herbie Hancock's presence is even more central on this record than on Speak No Evil, his piano essentially acting as a co-composer in the way he reharmonizes and reshapes the changes in real time. Joe Chambers is a different kind of drummer than Elvin Jones: where Jones surges and polyrhythmically floods the space, Chambers has a more subtle, painterly quality that suits the variety of material on this album. Reggie Workman's bass is a constant source of interest, his walking lines on the uptempo pieces carrying tremendous harmonic information.

Adam's Apple is also notable for the inclusion of "502 Blues," a straightahead blues that shows Shorter could navigate the most basic jazz forms with as much authority as the most complex. The range on this record is extraordinary, from the funky directness of "502 Blues" to the abstract density of "El Gaucho," and it holds together because of the absolute consistency of the playing.

Recorded in 1967 but not released until 1969, by which time Shorter had joined Miles Davis's electric group and the jazz world had moved significantly. Schizophrenia sits at the end of the acoustic Blue Note period, a sextet session that expands the palette with Curtis Fuller's trombone and James Spaulding returning on alto and flute. The title is a bit of a provocation: the music is not actually fractured or contradictory, but it does move between different emotional registers more rapidly than any of the earlier Blue Note records.

Shorter's writing here reaches a kind of maximum density. The compositions are not less developed than the earlier Blue Notes; if anything they are more complex, the melodic lines more angular and the harmonic structures harder to track. But the playing is so assured that the difficulty doesn't create distance. Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Joe Chambers handle the intricate compositional demands with such ease that the music sounds inevitable rather than effortful.

Schizophrenia closes the Blue Note acoustic period on a high note. Shorter was about to disappear into the Miles Davis electric group for several years, and this record stands as the final statement of one of the most productive periods in any jazz musician's career. The subsequent Blue Note records would be different, more exploratory, less structurally assured. This is the last time things are quite this focused.

Shorter had been in the Miles Davis electric group for two years when he made this record, and the influence is audible throughout. Super Nova is the first Shorter record to fully embrace electric textures and open-ended collective improvisation, and it does so with a cast assembled from the very center of the late-1960s electric jazz universe: John McLaughlin and Sonny Sharrock on guitars, Jack DeJohnette on drums, Chick Corea on percussion, and Airto Moreira adding rhythmic color throughout.

This is also the record where Shorter begins seriously developing soprano saxophone as an equal voice alongside tenor, and the soprano adds a new dimension to his sound that would become increasingly important in the Weather Report years. On the soprano his slightly reedy quality becomes something more plaintive and searching, a voice that sits differently in the electric ensemble than the darker tenor does. Miroslav Vitous's bass is the elastic center of the rhythm section, his instrument as melodically active as any of the horns.

Super Nova is a record that requires patience from listeners who came to Shorter through the acoustic Blue Notes, but it rewards that patience fully. This is not Shorter departing from his compositional intelligence; it is that intelligence deployed in a radically different sonic environment. The structural thinking is all still there, just wrapped in electricity and percussion rather than the hard bop quintet format.

A return to acoustic instruments but in a very different configuration from the earlier Blue Note records. The absence of a piano gives the music an unusual open quality, the harmony suggested rather than stated, with Gene Bertoncini's guitar and Dave Friedman's vibraphone providing lighter, more translucent harmonic textures than any piano could offer. Ron Carter on bass and Billy Hart on drums provide rhythmic support that is, by post-bop standards, relatively restrained.

The compositions here have a spaciousness that reflects the new instrumentation. Without a piano to fill in the harmonic center, Shorter's saxophone solos carry more of the music's weight, and his playing has an exploratory quality that differs from the more harmonically dense Blue Note records. The soprano saxophone features more prominently here than on any previous album, its lighter sound fitting the chamber-like ensemble perfectly.

Odyssey of Iska is a transitional record, made as Shorter was preparing to leave Miles Davis's band and cofound Weather Report. It documents a musician feeling his way toward a new approach, and the exploration itself is the subject. Not quite as fully realized as the peak Blue Notes, but essential for understanding how Shorter got from Speak No Evil to Mysterious Traveller.

Recorded in 1970 but shelved until 1974, Moto Grosso Feio is the most difficult record in this survey. The electric ensemble is large and loosely organized, the compositions are more sketch-like than fully developed, and the recording quality is uneven. This is music that emerged from the same exploratory impulse as Super Nova but without the focused intensity of that session. It is primarily a document of a specific historical moment rather than a fully realized artistic statement.

There are rewards here for committed listeners. Shorter's soprano saxophone work throughout has a searching quality that points toward his Weather Report playing, and the Brazilian percussion elements, Brazilian in their polyrhythmic complexity, give the music a rhythmic texture unlike any other record in this period. But the album's identity never fully coheres, the various elements sitting side by side rather than integrating into a whole.

Worth hearing for completeness, and the Shorter soprano saxophone is always worth attention. But if you are building a Shorter collection, come to this one after the essential records: it makes more sense in context than it does as an introduction to this period of his work.

The great comeback. After several years submerged in the Weather Report collective and the various Blue Note transitional records, Native Dancer is Shorter's fully realized statement as a solo artist, and the partnership with Brazilian singer-songwriter Milton Nascimento turns out to be one of the most inspired collaborations in 1970s jazz. The two musicians have a natural sympathy that is immediately audible: Nascimento's voice and Shorter's soprano saxophone occupy similar tonal space, and they wind around each other throughout the album with an ease that suggests they have been playing together for years.

Herbie Hancock returns from the Blue Note years, now playing electric piano alongside acoustic, and his contribution is as sensitive and imaginative as ever. Wagner Tiso adds organ and piano textures that deepen the Brazilian harmonic palette, while Dave McDaniel's bass has a warmth and elasticity that suits the rhythmic elements. Airto Moreira's percussion is the glue that holds the various elements together without ever being obtrusive. The compositions are shared between Shorter and Nascimento, and the blend is seamless.

Native Dancer did not fit neatly into any category when it was released, and it still doesn't. It is too jazz-rooted to be Brazilian pop, too Brazilian to be conventional jazz, too melodic to be fusion in the electric sense, and too sophisticated to be easy listening. What it is, is completely beautiful, and it remains the most accessible entry point into the solo Shorter discography for listeners coming from outside jazz.

Recorded in 1965 but shelved and not released until 1979, The Soothsayer should be counted among the absolute masterpieces of the Blue Note period. The sextet replaces Elvin Jones with Tony Williams, the seventeen-year-old Miles Davis drummer who was already one of the most innovative drummers in the music, and the different rhythmic approach opens up new possibilities in the ensemble. Williams's playing is lighter and more flexible than Jones's dense polyrhythms, and Shorter's writing responds to the new rhythmic environment.

The title track is a ten-minute extended composition of genuine greatness, Shorter building through multiple sections with the same structural logic he deployed on the shorter compositions of Speak No Evil and JuJu, but here expanded into a form that allows each musician extended space for development. Freddie Hubbard, at his absolute peak during this period, plays with an authority that matches anything he recorded under his own name. McCoy Tyner finds the harmonic center of even the most ambiguous passages and illuminates it.

The fact that this record sat unreleased for fourteen years is one of jazz history's genuine tragedies. It belongs alongside Speak No Evil, JuJu, and Adam's Apple as the essential Blue Note Shorter, and the presence of Tony Williams in place of Elvin Jones makes it a unique document: a glimpse of what the Blue Note period might have sounded like with a different rhythmic conception.

Another record made in 1965 and shelved for fifteen years, Etcetera is the quartet partner to The Soothsayer's sextet, and it shares the same extraordinary quality of the best Blue Note period Shorter. The quartet of Shorter, Hancock, McBee, and Chambers has a different quality from the JuJu quartet with Tyner, Workman, and Elvin Jones: where the JuJu group had a concentrated intensity, this one has a more expansive quality, the music breathing more freely in the spaces between the notes.

Herbie Hancock's playing here is remarkable for its restraint and precision. He comps behind Shorter with voicings that seem to both support and challenge, suggesting harmonic paths that Shorter may or may not take, the relationship between soloist and accompanist conducted as an ongoing conversation. Cecil McBee has a woody warmth in his bass tone that gives the quartet a physical grounding that the higher-intensity Blue Note records sometimes sacrifice.

Etcetera and The Soothsayer together function as a kind of postscript to the Blue Note acoustic period, documents of a musician at peak form working in conditions of complete creative freedom. That both were shelved and released years later only adds to their slightly uncanny quality: music made in one era, heard in another, both belonging fully to neither.

The first solo album after Weather Report disbanded, and Shorter returns with an ambitious record that incorporates the contemporary electric production values of mid-1980s jazz while showcasing his compositional ambitions. The Synclavier programming by Joseph Vitarelli gives the record a layered, orchestral texture unlike anything in Shorter's previous catalog, and the ensemble of studio musicians, including ex-Weather Report drummer Alex Acuña, executes the complex arrangements with precision.

Larry Klein's bass provides the rhythmic foundation, his approach balancing electric clarity with the more open feel that Shorter's writing demands. Jim Walker's flutes add a woodwind dimension that complements Shorter's saxophones, and the dual keyboards of Yaron Gershovsky and Michiko Hill create rich harmonic beds beneath the compositions. Ralph Humphrey shares drumming duties with Acuña, and the production, though occasionally giving the music a compressed, clinical quality that the acoustic Blue Note records did not have to contend with, serves the compositions well.

Atlantis is imperfect, as most double albums are, and the mid-1980s production occasionally works against the music's deeper qualities. But it is a genuine artistic statement, not a commercial concession, and the best passages remind you that Shorter was still operating at a level above almost everyone else in jazz. The survey ends here, twenty-seven years from the Vee-Jay debut: a career of extraordinary scope and consistency.