Wayne Shorter's most personal album

[bertrand]

Michael,

Are these scores you mention above available somewhere?

Bertrand.

[WorldB3]

I saw Wayne on the High Life tour at the SF Jazz fest.

Unfortunately for him he had to follow one of the best opening sets I have ever seen with the Christian McBride Quintet playing Blue Note covers of Shorter tunes.

About 3 songs into Wayne's set about 80% of the crowd had left. My wife and went up to the front and enjoyed the rest of the show. Rachel Z was excellent through out and the version of Footprints of the encore was excellent.

Edited March 11, 2008 by WorldB3

[Free For All]

I saw Wayne on the High Life tour at the SF Jazz fest.

Unfortunately for him he had to follow one of the best opening sets I have ever seen with the Christian McBride Quintet playing Blue Note covers of Shorter tunes.

About 3 songs into Wayne's set about 80% of the crowd had left. My wife and went up to the front and enjoyed the rest of the show. Rachel Z was excellent through out and the version of Footprints of the encore was excellent.

Now that's ironic! The crowd stays for the set of Shorter tunes, but not for the artist himself!

[Michael Weiss]

Michael,

Are these scores you mention above available somewhere?

Bertrand.

PM sent

[JSngry]

while Michael Weiss ain't wrong, that's A LOT of close listening to what are-- c'mon, get fucking real-- pretty dogshit records. OF COURSE the only way out is composition & most of ya'll suck at it as "fleet" (& tiresome) as jazzbos "improvisations" are. passing voices around: wow, that's really "new," so much so i wanna asphyxiate myself in that hideous sonic time capsule, again: i am talking tone, timbres, sonorities, that certain squish of thigh, wing, buttock, leg & there was a wide-- W-I-D-E-- world of music at that time, before & after that didn't force us to truck in such dogshit just to get to the "good" parts, or at least better. i ain't anti Wayne but some of these latter day enconmiums are waaaaaay too much, or parochial. i "know," i think Tejas has a long-time relationship there so i appreciate the insight but still...

... are the compositions SO felicitous they transcend about a 1000 crap decisions-- or trapped in circumstance-- to get back to 'em?

edc thinks the fuck not. 1 + 1 was pretty vomitous too, tho' i'll blame Herbie three times as much as Wayne there.

There's a handful of artists to whom I "committed" a loooong time ago, and barring any major breach of fundamental faith, I go along for the ride no matter where, and no matter what. Wayne's been one of those folks, and although I haven't gone everywhere (some pretty obscure sideman appearances that I have neither the time nor inclination to dig around for at this juncture) or dug everything, those Columbia albums were some that I really did dig from Day One. Wasn't bothered boy the sounds and textures then nor now. They were what they were and they are what they are - sounds and textures. As such, they carry no weight or meaning other than what is imbued unto them by the composer/performer/listener nexus, and if it don't work for somebody, hey, that's 1/3 of the triangle that ain't there, and is that really anybody's "fault"? I think not. We all have blocks against certain vibrational clusters, and it's a challenge, if accepted, to work through those blocks into a realm of "obtained objectivity" (although if true objectivity is in fact "obtainable" is another matter altogether...). That's an issue with some sounds for me, but not the ones used on these records. Oh well, and all that. No, Wayne and his cohorts weren't into Zawinul-land as far as "human" electronic sounds go, but then again, when was Wayne ever about being "human" in the same sense that Zawinul was?

Anyway...point being that Wayne goes his way, and I check him out as he does, just because he's Wayne, and just because he can't he but be Wayne in anything that he does. That's what I hear first in any music of his - the Wayneness. The rest - tones, textures, etc. spring from and play to that, and just as I don't think it odd that a saxophonist continually experiment w/different reeds & mouthpieces in order to refine/clarify/possibly expand their tone, I don't think it odd that a composer would do the same with instrumentation.

The thing for me on these albums is this - does it - the whole of the music, from the lines to the textures to the melodies to the overall "feel - sound like anybody besides Wayne? And I gotta say that no, it doesn't. Didn't then, doesn't now.

I'm a low maintenance friend, really. I don't make a lot of demands on how you gotta "be" to stay my friend. In fact, I kinda dig it when motherfuckers go off on tangents, trips, and shit like that. I do it myself, why would I not like it when my friends do the same? So I'm not one to listen to, say, Phantom Navigator & rue how I dug Wayne so much more better when he was playing "Witch Hunt" all acoustic and all swinging with Elvin and all that Days Gone By shit. Nah, Wayne's my buddy, and if Wayne's got this to say, then I want to hear what he has to say the way he wants to say it, and the way I am with my friends, them being who they want/need to be takes precedence over how I want/need them to be. If it gets too weird, I can and will sign off . But otherwise, hey, if you're my friend, you can almost always do your thing and have it appreciated as such.

As for 1+1, it should have been recorded after they woke up from their nap, not during it. Simple as that.

Edited March 12, 2008 by JSngry

[WorldB3]

I saw Wayne on the High Life tour at the SF Jazz fest.

Unfortunately for him he had to follow one of the best opening sets I have ever seen with the Christian McBride Quintet playing Blue Note covers of Shorter tunes.

About 3 songs into Wayne's set about 80% of the crowd had left. My wife and went up to the front and enjoyed the rest of the show. Rachel Z was excellent through out and the version of Footprints of the encore was excellent.

Now that's ironic! The crowd stays for the set of Shorter tunes, but not for the artist himself!

yeah, the High Life material didn't go over well at all. However thats nothing compared to what a fan said at the live Miles tribute show I saw in Berkeley with Wallace Rooney, Wayne, Herbie, Ron and Tony after Miles passed. After Agitation a fan yelled out "Play Miles!" like the band had just broke out a new tune or something. Wayne muttered buy the f-ing records. The idiocy of people.

I have never heard the album High Life itself but I agree that 1+1 was a pretty big disappointment.

Edited March 12, 2008 by WorldB3

[Joe G]

Simply put, High Life has some GREAT tunnage.

[7/4]

As for 1+1, it should have been recorded after they woke up from their nap, not during it. Simple as that.

As simple as - it's too sleepy for you? I kinda like that album.

.