Description

Newly-remastered for vinyl as part of an overall Blue Note 75th anniversary vinyl reissue campaign spearheaded by current Blue Note Records President, Don Was.

Speak No Evil is recent Grammy winner Wayne Shorters sixth album. Recorded in 1964 and released on Blue Note in 1965, the album features Shorter on tenor sax with Herbie Hancock on piano, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Ron Carter on bass and Elvin Jones on drums. Speak No Evil combines elements of hard bop and modal jazz on the albums six tracks: Witch Hunt, Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum, Dance Cadaverous, Speak No Evil, Infant Eyes and Wild Flower.

Wayne Shorter made a major impact on the Jazz world during 1963-64. He left Art Blakeys Jazz Messengers to become a member of the Miles Davis Quintet, and he recorded Night Dreamer and Juju as a leader for Blue Note. Speak No Evil is even notable than those two gems, for Shorter had developed into not only one of the most original tenor-saxophonists of the 1960s but also one of its most vital composers. With superb playing by Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Freddie Hubbard and Elvin Jones, Shorter introduces six unique compositions. Hubbard and Hancock consistently raise the temperature with fiery solos. Shorters playing and writing are both beyond description, utilizing a logic all his own which, over time, has become a major influence in Modern Jazz. Throughout Speak No Evil, Shorter creates brilliant new music like no one else.

On his third date for Blue Note within a year, Wayne Shorter changed the bands that played on both Night Dreamer and Juju and came up with not only another winner, but also managed to give critics and jazz fans a different look at him as a saxophonistThe swing is gentle but pronounced and full of Shorters singular lyricism as a saxophonist as well as a composer. -Thom Jurek,