Come Listen to The Entire Wayne Shorter Discography with Man Alive

yeah, I actually started searching around to see if there was any way to get a print of it, it's great

Just bumping this to give folks a chance to say anything more about Night Dreamer before I do JuJu, one of my faves. Probably tonight.

I keep reading or hearing that Wayne was criticized early for being a Coltrane wannabe or something

i can kind of hear it but only in a distant way — seems to me Shorter has a different overall style from Coltrane, but there's something similar (especially in the early/mid-60s) about Wayne's tone/pitch that puts it closer to JC than some other players from around that time. Not a "wannabe" by any stretch though. Also a pretty strict avoidance of cliche.

yeah, I actually started searching around to see if there was any way to get a print of it, it's great

night dreamer just exudes coolness and mystery that his previous bandleader dates did not even approach. ofc as i mentioned upthread shorter refined his playing and composition during his tenure in the jazz messengers but even those records, awesome and electric as they may be, do not have the drowned-in-smoke atmosphere of his blue note run. i think tyler's making a legit point about shorter's tone re: its indebtedness to coltrane, but in every other way shorter was as pure a miles acolyte as there could be—remove everything extraneous so that your records are permissive, seductive, suggestive moods instead of blowathons*

*nothing against blowathons

sometimes you need a good blowathon, you know?

"virgo" is def my favorite track from night dreamer, nearly as stirring as "infant eyes"

Some thoughts on “Night Dreamer”: They’re all Shorter originals; he’s clearly feeling confident as a composer. His solos are next level throughout. While I can hear hints of Coltrane in some of Shorter’s phrasing, his tone is entirely his own here - he sounds like he knows exactly who he is now (that “come down from the mountain” vibe referenced above). On the “Introducing” album, he sometimes seemed like he needed Morgan to egg him on. No such case on “Night Dreamer.” His command is awe-inspiring. The album is recorded beautifully, other than Workman’s bass being a little muddy. Elvin Jones has that wonderful ability to play offbeat without losing the pulse. The rhythm section overall is seamless. Is there a story behind why McCoy Tyner is credited as “Etc.” on the cover, some sort of contractual dispute?

SUper Nova is so different from anything else he's done, it comes out of the gate doing skronky near euro-free improv. A this stage, you would maybe have expected smrthign a little more "In a Silent Way" mellow.

I think the McCoy thing was contractual, I remember reading about it at some point but can't dig it up. Maybe a conflict with Impulse?

dispatches from the future:

- if you're worried about getting bogged down in the '80s, it may comprise his weirdest solo material

- atlantis is quickly becoming my favorite shorter record after speak no evil and native dancer: slick, smooth, way more composed than improvised... like symphonic jazz without the symphony? chamber jazz? but with state of the art 1985 production so every instrument sounds hyperreal

- if he were any other musician, the work with the danilo perez/john patitucci/brian blade quartet would be the peak of his career, and it still might be

I listened to Atlantis recently and won't be coming back soon, but it's cool. Change a few details (the piano sound, the snare sound/reverb, swap out Alex Acuna (who kills it) for a modern drummer with all the linear playing and cymbal stacks du jour), and the style feels very contemporary compared with a certain strain of current straight 8th note jazz? Not sure if that's exactly a complement or not but I wonder how influential it was.

Managed to watch the first episode of the doc before my Prime free trial expired, worth it for the quintet footage alone.

Man alive, please update with the rest of your listening adventure which you surely kept up with.