Ugetsu

The Jazz Messengers: Wayne Shorter (tenor sax), Freddie Hubbard (trumpet), Curtis Fuller (trombone), Cedar Walton (piano), Reggie Workman (bass) and Art Blakey (drums). From the album Ugetsu (1963).

Wayne Shorter is a tenor and soprano jazz saxophonist, and an American composer. Many of his themes have become standards. His first influences were Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane and Coleman Hawkins. While in the military service he played briefly with Horace Silver, and when he was finished he joined Maynard Ferguson’s band. From 1959 to 1961 he was in the Jazz Messengers of Art Blakey, becoming the musical director of the group.

Meanwhile he started recording his own albums. Miles Davis convinced him to join his quintet in 1964. While he was with him he was a fruitful composer and in 1968 he also began to play soprano saxophone. Shorter went from playing hard bop to entering the avant-garde and jazz fusion.

The introduction is performed again by the rhythm section and then Hubbard enters playing the melody of the theme and making his solo full of nooks and crannies. Shorter follows with a very well-defined melodic line. Fuller then enters by skillfully playing a difficult instrument to master. Then Walton arrives in a relaxed way, but adding more intense passages. The group re-exposes the theme, but Hubbard intervenes in between and then Shorter and Fuller as well. At last, the rhythm section is left alone playing for a while until the end.