Wayne Shorter Juju

Fulfilling the potential promised on his Blue Note debut, Night Dreamer, Wayne Shorter's JuJu was the first great showcase for both his performance and compositional gifts. Early in his career as a leader, Shorter was criticized as a mere acolyte of John Coltrane, and his use of Coltrane's rhythm section on his first two Blue Note albums only bolstered that criticism. The truth is, though, that Elvin Jones, Reggie Workman, and McCoy Tyner were the perfect musicians to back Shorter. Jones' playing at the time was almost otherworldly. He seemed to channel the music through him when improvising and emit the perfect structure to hold it together. Workman too seemed to almost instinctively understand how to embellish Shorter's compositions…

Fulfilling the potential promised on his Blue Note debut, Night Dreamer, Wayne Shorter's JuJu was the first great showcase for both his performance and compositional gifts. Early in his career as a leader, Shorter was criticized as a mere acolyte of John Coltrane, and his use of Coltrane's rhythm section on his first two Blue Note albums only bolstered that criticism. The truth is, though, that Elvin Jones, Reggie Workman, and McCoy Tyner were the perfect musicians to back Shorter. Jones' playing at the time was almost otherworldly. He seemed to channel the music through him when improvising and emit the perfect structure to hold it together…

A classic mid-‘60s Blue Note selection from another living legend of our music: Juju (1965) features the stellar, one-time John Coltrane rhythm section of McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman and Elvin Jones; Speak No Evil (1966) is simply one of the all-time-great jazz albums, recorded with Wayne’s Miles Davis Quintet bandmates Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter; and its follow-up The All-Seeing Eye (1966) features some striking compositions in a highly unusual septet format.

On his third date for Blue Note within a year, Wayne Shorter changed the bands that played on both Night Dreamer and Juju and came up with not only another winner, but also managed to give critics and jazz fans a different look at him as a saxophonist…

On his third date for Blue Note within a year, Wayne Shorter changed the bands that played on both Night Dreamer and Juju and came up with not only another winner, but also managed to give critics and jazz fans a different look at him as a saxophonist. Because of his previous associations with McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, and Reggie Workman on those recordings, Shorter had been unfairly branded with the "just-another-Coltrane-disciple" tag, despite his highly original and unusual compositions. Here, with only Jones remaining and his bandmates from the Miles Davis Quintet, Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter on board (with Freddie Hubbard filling out the horn section), Shorter at last came into his own and caused a major reappraisal of his earlier work…

We at Posi-Tone greatly mourn the recent passing of Master Wayne Shorter and wish to offer our humble honors to his wonderful life and inspirational music. While this musical offering was originally intended as a celebration of Master Shorter's 90th birthday, we hope this bouquet of auditory rosebuds will assist listeners to find comfort and joy in remembering him as a wonderful human being. Accordingly, with this third and final installment of “Shorter Moments,” we would like to celebrate the wide ranging and ineffable genius of Wayne's peerless compositions, lovingly performed over the recent years by a wide variety of artists from our talented roster.