Wayne Shorter - Speak No Evil (2024 Blue Note 85th Anniversary Limited Edition Blue Vinyl LP)

Wayne Shorter - Speak No Evil | Vinyl LP - 2024 Blue Note 85th Anniversary Limited Edition Blue Vinyl (5879067, 3000 copies worldwide)

Wayne Shorter recorded Speak No Evil on Christmas Eve, 1964. He had joined the Miles Davis Quintet four months earlier. Alfred Lion produced. For the session, Shorter brought Freddie Hubbard on trumpet — Hubbard had been in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers with Shorter, and the easy fluency between them is all over the record — alongside Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter, both from Miles's band, and Elvin Jones, who had been inside the Coltrane quartet since 1960. Rudy Van Gelder engineered.

All six tracks are Shorter originals. "Witch Hunt" opens Side A with a blues-inflected theme stated in trumpet and saxophone unison. "Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum" moves harder; "Dance Cadaverous" is the most oblique piece on the side. "Speak No Evil," which opens Side B, carries the melody in the same unison horn voicing as the opener, Horn and piano split around Shorter's solo. "Infant Eyes" is a ballad for Shorter's daughter Miyako — essentially a long saxophone statement with a brief Hancock coda, nine bars in ABA form, the tonal centre shifting through several modes. "Wild Flower" closes the record open and fast, Hubbard and Hancock forward. The album was recorded in 1964 and released June 1966.

This is the 2024 Blue Note 85th Anniversary limited edition on blue vinyl, limited to 3000 copies worldwide. Mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio. Pressed in Germany. Comes with obi.