Wayne Shorter - Dee
And now, the single greatest placeholder post I'll likely ever do.
The last 10 days have been very busy. My husband & I redesigned this place to look passably 21st century, retiring the "MySpace in the 19th Century" style of the old look from 10 years ago. We also made a merchandise line, kind of branded the page. Then, I spent the last week backfilling all 740 posts of this thing with valid links, based on the month they were published, and removing all the zillions of dead links from the past decade. I shifted it to direct links beginning in August of last year, and going forward it will stay that way.
In the middle of all this recalibration, we had a major transition in the world of the music, as everyone surely knows by now.
He almost made it to 90, so when he gets there posthumously in August, I will cover him again. But, for reasons which should become obvious, we're gonna commemorate his passing last week with something as special and as hard to come by as anything I may ever put up.
A figure of this magnitude, with this degree of a formative influence on the music of our age and all that will follow, demands and deserves that sort of respect.
It's been said that Wayne Shorter was the only person ever to bring music to Miles Davis that went unchanged. That's some pretty rarified Footprints in which to walk, if you ask me.
Perhaps less mundane and arcane is the ongoing, forever impact of Weather Report, which he co-founded with Joe Zawinul fresh off what I'm about to share today.
Appropriate that last picture there is the cover of Odyssey of Iska, which was his last issued platter for Blue Note before WR started. As it turns out, it wasn't the last session he laid down for the label during his initial stay there.
A couple of days after Wayne left us, a friend of mine in the ROIO Quality Control Contingent who shall remain nameless dropped something almost no one has heard on me, and I haven't stopped playing it since. He has most generously allowed me to furnish it here.
How do you sum up the career and the mission of someone of the monumental consequence and unquantifiable importance of a Wayne Shorter, the likes of whom we ought thank Providence for every day we get to spend with our lifetimes overlapping theirs?
Other than what are reported to be his last words -- "OK, it's time to go get a new body and continue the mission." -- I can't think of any better way to honor and commemorate him than with this.
So something of an exclusive, then: never issued and to be found precisely nowhere on the interwebs until right now, this is Wayne Shorter's last Blue Note album of his first (1964-1970) run there, recorded in October 1970 at A&R Studios in NYC and sourced from what sounds like the master reels.
Wayne Shorter Quintet
Creation
A&R Studios
New York City, NY USA
10.13.1970
01 The Creation
02 B. Because
03 Cee
04 Dee
05 Effe
Total time: 42:05
Wayne Shorter - tenor & soprano saxophones
McCoy Tyner - piano
Miroslav Vitous - bass
Alphonse Mouzon - drums & percussion
Barbara Burton - vibraphone, marimba & percussion
unissued and uncirculated October 1970 session for Blue Note Records
sourced from what sounds like the original master tapes
slightly retracked -- as per the online Blue Note sessionography -- with volume increased by +1 dB throughout by EN, March 2023
270 MB FLAC/direct link
270 MB FLAC/direct link
For the next week I will be backing up my big drive, so I may not be heard from until sometime next weekend. But I wanted to stop by here and let this stunning session loose, so folks are remembering Wayne in the best and freshest way, and one that does a little bit to expand upon the already gargantuan legacy he leaves us.
OK? Enjoy this very spectacular deluge of Wayne, and please let it help ensure you never forget about what Wayne Shorter -- as extraordinary a musical figure as any anyone could name -- did to enrich the life of this world forever.--J.
"Wayne tunes are great."
8.25.1933 - 3.2.2023