Live: Wayne Shorter Quartet
Wayne Shorter Quartet
Memorial Hall, Stanford
Wayne Shorter
Danilo Perez
Brian Blade
John Patitucci
There are very few things better than Wayne Shorter musically. This is almost an incontrovertible fact, were it not obviously this writers complete awestruck opinion.
When Miles Davis left this earthly plane, the void left was almost unfathomable. One seriously wondered who would fill that void, if ever. I do not know if it is truly filled by any standard, but I do think if it is, it is not due to some new, unbelieveable talent having arrived like a savior, but rather two of Miles's sidemen have stepped up quietly and effortlessly. They happen to have both served under the Dark Prince at roughly the same stages, and both continue to have a strong working relationship with each other now. One is Herbie Hancock, the other Wayne Shorter. Within that dyadic pair, you have an amassment of jazz knowledge, technical power, compositional breadth, and sheer supernatural presence, it is damn-all staggering. They are both at ages where one could forgive them for being long past their creative prime...yet there is nothing to forgive, seeing as they both seem to be quite on point.
This is my third Wayne Shorter show, and like the other two, not a letdown.* While I am still deeply at odds with his choice of Patitucci as bassist (more on that later), as a whole his working band has stayed together for several years now, and their interaction has continued to improve. While they are still playing out quite a bit --as if Wayne got the free-jazz bug 3 decades late-- it is more focused, more relaxed, less forced than many who practice the genre. Shorter's work is narrative. Stories are told instead of patterns placed in a line and presented to the listener to just passively take in. You have to focus on this stuff. And to do so is almost always rewarding.
The show was well paced, with passages of almost ECM-like chamber jazz shaken up and punctuated by bursts of cacophonic breakdowns and muscular full-steam workouts. Wayne has apparently lost none of his technical prowess, and his tenor is warm; from breathy drones to concussive intervallic runs. If nothing else, I have to thank him for also saving the soprano sax from Kenny G. After a Wayne performance you feel cleansed of that brillo-pad headed soft-jam fascist. His stints during the show with it showed a much more meaty usage. Powerful, meandering melody lines and extended solos that gave the instrument a vibrant, assertive tone. I don't think Shorter is capable of putting on a bum gig. His playing has not lost any passion, and unlike some of his contemporaries (Sonny Rollins comes to mind) he does not appear to be in a holding pattern. His playing seems to reflect the inquisitive character and well-balanced nature of the man one reads about or hears in interviews and documentary segments. He is art imitating life (his own) it would seem.
As for the rest of the players:
Danilo Perez: the most functional and most faceless of the lot. His operating style seems to be totally subservient to laying a great bed of space for Wayne to work in, and that is a commendable acheivement. He is not a Hancock or Tyner, but he has chops and sounded clean and interesting at more than one spot.
Brian Blade: This guy is truly destined for greatness. One day we will be seeing this dude in the same pantheon as Tony and Elvin and Max. He is 100% A-game, all the time. He can be quiet and accompany with minimum fuss, or explode like an octopus on methadrine. His playing is very visual, heterodox, and fun to watch. The guy has rolls that are some of the most crisp and precise anywhere. If anyone could steal a little thunder from the Wayne, it is Blade. In terms of how he fits musically, he is perfect; providing a great engine to all of Shorter's various moods. I can see why he keeps him. Frankly I think it would be interesting to see a Shorter/Blade duet performance, or maybe a trio with someone like Eberhard Weber filing in the space.
John Patittuci: I have had a long love/hate relationship with this lummox of a player. His smooth-jazz fusion early work on GRP (as a solo artist) and with the Chick Corea Elektric band were mostly abyssmal archetypes of what went wrong with fusion (Chick Corea has produced almost nothing of interest to me since his Return to Forever years when Clarke and White were still in that outfit, and since then he has churned out sidemen of technical ability and musical blandness since). He has chops to spare, and can on occasion come up with a cool riff or solo, but often it would be ruined in flatulent production and cheesey arrangements. On acoustic upright, he suffers from a rather dead, spongy tone, a lack of inventiveness, and an overbearing need to assert himself. His solo was a complete dumpster-full of wasted sound. Also, randomly emitting loud outbursts from your yap does not make you seem like Keith Jarrett, it makes you seem like a moron. While his playing has improved since my first experience listening to him, he still has not learned much. Wayne, replace this lumbering clod with a George Mraz or better yet, someone who can really play in the various contexts you are into: Ben Allison.
* The second show was 2004 with the reunion of Shorter and Hancock with another Davis alum, Dave Holland, and with Brian Blade sitting in admirably for the chair that probably would have sat Tony Williams were he alive.
Memorial Hall, Stanford
Wayne Shorter
Danilo Perez
Brian Blade
John Patitucci
There are very few things better than Wayne Shorter musically. This is almost an incontrovertible fact, were it not obviously this writers complete awestruck opinion.
When Miles Davis left this earthly plane, the void left was almost unfathomable. One seriously wondered who would fill that void, if ever. I do not know if it is truly filled by any standard, but I do think if it is, it is not due to some new, unbelieveable talent having arrived like a savior, but rather two of Miles's sidemen have stepped up quietly and effortlessly. They happen to have both served under the Dark Prince at roughly the same stages, and both continue to have a strong working relationship with each other now. One is Herbie Hancock, the other Wayne Shorter. Within that dyadic pair, you have an amassment of jazz knowledge, technical power, compositional breadth, and sheer supernatural presence, it is damn-all staggering. They are both at ages where one could forgive them for being long past their creative prime...yet there is nothing to forgive, seeing as they both seem to be quite on point.
This is my third Wayne Shorter show, and like the other two, not a letdown.* While I am still deeply at odds with his choice of Patitucci as bassist (more on that later), as a whole his working band has stayed together for several years now, and their interaction has continued to improve. While they are still playing out quite a bit --as if Wayne got the free-jazz bug 3 decades late-- it is more focused, more relaxed, less forced than many who practice the genre. Shorter's work is narrative. Stories are told instead of patterns placed in a line and presented to the listener to just passively take in. You have to focus on this stuff. And to do so is almost always rewarding.
The show was well paced, with passages of almost ECM-like chamber jazz shaken up and punctuated by bursts of cacophonic breakdowns and muscular full-steam workouts. Wayne has apparently lost none of his technical prowess, and his tenor is warm; from breathy drones to concussive intervallic runs. If nothing else, I have to thank him for also saving the soprano sax from Kenny G. After a Wayne performance you feel cleansed of that brillo-pad headed soft-jam fascist. His stints during the show with it showed a much more meaty usage. Powerful, meandering melody lines and extended solos that gave the instrument a vibrant, assertive tone. I don't think Shorter is capable of putting on a bum gig. His playing has not lost any passion, and unlike some of his contemporaries (Sonny Rollins comes to mind) he does not appear to be in a holding pattern. His playing seems to reflect the inquisitive character and well-balanced nature of the man one reads about or hears in interviews and documentary segments. He is art imitating life (his own) it would seem.
As for the rest of the players:
Danilo Perez: the most functional and most faceless of the lot. His operating style seems to be totally subservient to laying a great bed of space for Wayne to work in, and that is a commendable acheivement. He is not a Hancock or Tyner, but he has chops and sounded clean and interesting at more than one spot.
Brian Blade: This guy is truly destined for greatness. One day we will be seeing this dude in the same pantheon as Tony and Elvin and Max. He is 100% A-game, all the time. He can be quiet and accompany with minimum fuss, or explode like an octopus on methadrine. His playing is very visual, heterodox, and fun to watch. The guy has rolls that are some of the most crisp and precise anywhere. If anyone could steal a little thunder from the Wayne, it is Blade. In terms of how he fits musically, he is perfect; providing a great engine to all of Shorter's various moods. I can see why he keeps him. Frankly I think it would be interesting to see a Shorter/Blade duet performance, or maybe a trio with someone like Eberhard Weber filing in the space.
John Patittuci: I have had a long love/hate relationship with this lummox of a player. His smooth-jazz fusion early work on GRP (as a solo artist) and with the Chick Corea Elektric band were mostly abyssmal archetypes of what went wrong with fusion (Chick Corea has produced almost nothing of interest to me since his Return to Forever years when Clarke and White were still in that outfit, and since then he has churned out sidemen of technical ability and musical blandness since). He has chops to spare, and can on occasion come up with a cool riff or solo, but often it would be ruined in flatulent production and cheesey arrangements. On acoustic upright, he suffers from a rather dead, spongy tone, a lack of inventiveness, and an overbearing need to assert himself. His solo was a complete dumpster-full of wasted sound. Also, randomly emitting loud outbursts from your yap does not make you seem like Keith Jarrett, it makes you seem like a moron. While his playing has improved since my first experience listening to him, he still has not learned much. Wayne, replace this lumbering clod with a George Mraz or better yet, someone who can really play in the various contexts you are into: Ben Allison.
* The second show was 2004 with the reunion of Shorter and Hancock with another Davis alum, Dave Holland, and with Brian Blade sitting in admirably for the chair that probably would have sat Tony Williams were he alive.
posted by theloniusfunk at 10:27 AM
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