CDOTD 3/2/2023

 Wayne Shorter: The All Seeing Eye (Blue Note)

I can't remember where I purchased this, possibly Paul's CDs

During the time I taught at CAPA High School, we looked forward every year to one of the guest artists appearing in the Pitt Jazz Seminar to come to school to play. My two favorites were Lew Soloff and Larry Coryell. Both came to play, but also engaged the students.

One year, c. 2000, Benny Golson came to CAPA*. I read his biographical statement prior to appearance. In his accomplishments, it was listed that he was the only living composer had composed "ten jazz standards.." (It could have read eight, but I remember the number ten.) I thought, that can't possibly be true. How many standards had Benny composed? "Killer Joe", "Whisper Not", no question. "I Remember Clifford", "Along Came Betty", "Stablemates", arguably. "Blues March"? "Blues After Dark"? No.**

Then I thought, who was alive at the time who had written that many standards? I thought first, well, Sonny Rollins. Then it occurred to me. Wayne Shorter. He had written more standard practice pieces than any other living composer, possibly more than Sonny. 

Wayne died today. It didn't come as a shock. Last time I saw him, at an awards show I think, he was in a wheelchair and looking frail. The last time I saw him play on video was at a White House appearance during George W's presidency, and Wayne didn't sound good. Maybe he was weak, but he also maybe looked like he didn't want to be there.***

My favorite jazz composers will probably always be Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, and Duke Ellington, just off the top of my head. That said, the intense burst of creative energy by Wayne Shorter from 1964-1966 has rarely been equalled and may never be surpassed. Consider, under his name alone: Night Dreamer, JuJu, Speak No Evil, The Soothsayer, Et Cetera, Adam's Apple. Several hours of original works, some of which are catchy as hell ("Adam's Apple" in particular). 

Then there's his most famous gig, playing the tenor seat in the so-called second great Miles Davis Quintet. 1965 saw release of E.S.P., and in the following years, Wayne would contribute more compositions to the group than anyone else. (Though is it his most famous gig? He did play in Weather Report for a time. It could be his most historically significant.)

This is to speak nothing of his playing. I can't help but feel that there's a Coltrane influence on Wayne's sound and approach, but there's little question that he was also distinctive from the older saxophonist. Perhaps tenor saxophone stylings were headed in that direction anyway, the post-bebop of players such as Coltrane, Shorter, John Gilmore, Clifford Jordan. Shedding the shimmery vibrato of Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster, an influence that originates more from Lester Young and Charlie Parker. 

Speaking of influence is a tricky thing though, and I often find it unfair. Wayne was Wayne, regardless of who were his favorite players as a formative artist. 

For this evening's listening, I put on this somewhat strange session, The All Seeing Eye. It falls in Wayne's sessionography between Et Cetera and Adam's Apple. It's the largest group he assembled for a Blue Note session, an all star session with Grachan Moncur III, James Spaulding, Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Joe Chambers. Wayne's brother Alan composed and played the fifth and final cut, "Mephistopheles".****

While I can't say this is better than JuJu, Speak No Evil, or Adam's Apple, I'm attracted to this session for a couple of reasons. It's an ambitious work, more than most of his small group albums. The music is constantly veering towards (or steps solidly into) atonality. It is certainly highly chromatic in nature. There are touches of free jazz, preceding or concurrently with the Miles Quintet's "time but no changes" principle. It's almost harsh sounding at times, but also feels closer to me to intense chamber music. While the entire band bristles and everyone has at least one good feature on the album, Herbie's contribution seems especially vital, pounding out clustery chords, vamping on Alan's piece, or laying out entirely. He's consistently creative and shifts the intensity of the music. 

Was 1959 the most exciting time in jazz history? It's unquestionably the greatest year in jazz album recordings. But this seems like a pretty exciting time too, a few years later: living out the liberties of free jazz, the music expanding and growing. But by then The Beatles had hit, rock-n-roll had taken over popular culture, and things would remain that way for decades.

Will we see another artist like Wayne again? The optimist in me says that surely someone as talented, original, and dedicated has to come around. Maybe that person is already here and I just don't know it. The pessimist in me says, no, we're not going to see his like ever again. At least we can listen, enjoy, appreciate what an original voice Wayne Shorter was. His composing can be deceptively simple at times, but he almost never relies on established song forms as the spine of his pieces. A notable exception would be the famous piece "Footprints", and even then he puts an original stamp on the melody and harmony to twelve-bar blues form.

Farewell Wayne, I hope you understood how important your work was to many of us. I suspect you did, but it also didn't prevent you from having a long, long creative life, never resting on your proverbial laurels. I'm grateful to have shared the planet with you during my lifetime.

* Apart from Benny's visit, what I remember about that day was that a student peed on one of the radiators, and the bottom floor of the building absolutely reeked of urine. It was embarrassing. I had an idea, not conclusively, who might have been responsible. It wasn't the only time.

** Benny was a bit of a bore I'm afraid. I was coaching a jazz quartet once a week, and the group's saxophonist was adamant that they play "Along Came Betty", not an easy piece. I said I'd provide the chart for them, but only if they transcribed another Golson piece and played it for him by memory. I chose "Blues March", and gave them assistance writing it down. They did play it for him, and he joined them for "Betty". He commented that the group had the correct changes (thanks to Dr. John Wilson). Otherwise, Benny just basically talked about himself, talked about growing up with Coltrane. I don't think he played anything else, and didn't really have any other exchanges with students. 

*** Contrast that to when Jimmy Carter held a jazz summit on the White House lawn, that included a performances by Cecil Taylor, Ornette, Dizzy, Mary Lou Williams, and many others. It was a joyous occasion. A couple of years later, the Reagan administration couldn't have the Beach Boys appear in the DC Fourth of July celebrations without controversy.

**** One of the many topics of conversation during my week with Anthony Braxton was Alan Shorter. Anthony said, if Alan entered the club, you just got out of the way. He said Alan was crazy and mean, and there was a good likelihood that a chair would be thrown across the room.