Wayne Shorter - 'Juju' (Blue Note 85 Edition)

 

1964 was a pivotal year in the musical life of Wayne Shorter.  At the start of the year, he was still a member of Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, appearing on classic Blue Note albums like 'Indestructible' and 'Free for All'.

Wayne made his own excellent label debut that spring with 'Night Dreamer' and that summer he joined the Miles Davis Quintet, cementing a line-up that would become one of the outstanding, and my favorite bands in jazz history.

When he returned to the studio for Blue Note in August, it was in the company of three musicians with strong ties to John Coltrane: pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Reggie Workman, and drummer Elvin Jones.  The resulting album 'JuJu' is a magnificent effort in Shorter’s enormous recording career which presents six of his imaginative original compositions including the churning title track, the mesmerizing "House of Jade" and the brightly swinging "Yes Or No."

'Speak No Evil' is generally considered Wayne's masterpiece, and while I do not dispute that, there's just something about "Juju" that speaks to me.  Maybe it's because the compositions are every bit as good and the tracks are longer, which allows more exploration.  To me, that makes it more representative of jazz back in the 1960s and one of the classics of the period. 

I was gifted 'Juju' in 1964 for my 17th birthday, and all these years later, I still listen to it regularly and the melodies still haunt me.

Today's freeload is a remastered limited edition from Blue Note Japan, in the UHQCD format, from masterings that Kevin Gray did for the Tone Poet and BN Classic LP releases.  And they sound sweet!  If you freeloaded the previously posted 'Blue Note 85 Reissues', you know what I'm talking about.

For the freeload, what were some of your favorite albums when you were 17?