Wayne Shorter - The Soothsayer (1979 Japanese Blue Note Vinyl LP)

Wayne Shorter - The Soothsayer | Vinyl LP - 1979 Japanese King Record First Release (GXF 3054, Blue Note World First Release 1800 Series)

• World premiere pressing of a shelved Shorter masterpiece, recorded in 1965 and unissued for fourteen years, this Japanese LP is the first time this session appeared on vinyl anywhere
• Sextet featuring Freddie Hubbard, James Spaulding, McCoy Tyner, Ron Carter and Tony Williams, produced by Alfred Lion at Van Gelder's studio, produced for release by Michael Cuscuna
• Blue Note (World First Release 1800 Series) on King Record with  Japanese liner notes by Yohzoh Iwanami and English notes by Michael Cuscuna

This record is the reason the session exists in the catalogue at all. Wayne Shorter recorded The Soothsayer on March 4, 1965, during a run of Blue Note dates so productive that the label simply could not keep pace: Night Dreamer, Juju and Speak No Evil were already queued for pressing. The tapes sat in the vault for fourteen years until Michael Cuscuna produced them for release in 1979 as part of King Record's Blue Note World First Release series in Japan. Shorter had just joined Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet when this was cut, and three of the sidemen (Carter, Williams and Tyner) were borrowed from that band and from Coltrane's quartet. The three-horn front line of Shorter, Hubbard and Spaulding gives the writing a weight that most of Shorter's Blue Note sessions, with their quartets and quintets, do not carry. "Lost" opens with a modal theme that lets each horn find its own space, Spaulding's alto offering a Bird-inflected alternative to Hubbard's brighter attack. "Angola" is tighter and more driving, and "The Big Push" is the most rhythmically complex piece on Side A, Carter and Williams pushing the tempo around while the horns negotiate a winding melody.

"The Soothsayer" itself is the album's centrepiece on Side B, a buoyant, soaring piece where Shorter and Spaulding trade phrases with a looseness that the more structured A-side compositions do not allow. "Lady Day", Shorter's tribute to Billie Holiday, is a ballad played with patience, Tyner drawing colour from the harmony while Shorter keeps his solo spare and melodic. "Valse Triste" closes the album with an arrangement of Jean Sibelius's waltz that sits unexpectedly and perfectly at the end, the trio format creating space after the density of the preceding tracks. Produced originally by Alfred Lion, engineered by Rudy Van Gelder, remixed by Tony Sestanovich for the 1979 release. Cover design by Toshikazu Tanaka. This is the original 1979 King Record pressing (GXF 3054), the first time this material appeared on any format.