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wayne shorter &
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BY EZRA GALE | every so often, a recording comes along that reminds us how expansive jazz can be. These albums tend to fly in the face of what we've come to define as "jazz," oftentimes paring down their compositions to the bone and allowing the subtleties of each instrument to be more fully explored. The new album from Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, "1+1" is one of these albums -- and it couldn't have come along at a better time. The irony is that, probably more than any other musicians, Hancock and Shorter have defined our notions of contemporary jazz. As members of the legendary mid-'60s Miles Davis Quintet and with their own subsequent solo work, they pushed and pulled at the harmonic and structural constraints of the jazz form to create a freer, more abstract model that has become the norm on virtually every small-group jazz recording since, from Wynton Marsalis to Joshua Redman to Roy Hargrove and others. On "1+1," the pair are at it again, and in contrast to some of their recent solo work (especially Shorter's disastrous 1995 effort, "High Life," which buried the leader's lyrical sax under a wall of easy-listening orchestrations), it's the kind of work that reminds us of why these two are so revered in the first place. There are 10 duets on the album (Hancock plays acoustic piano and Shorter soprano sax), each of which is notable for its spare beauty. Hancock's astonishing range has never been more fully in evidence -- he's as comfortable recalling the impressionism of Debussy in the plaintive opening tones of Shorter's "Meridianne -- A Wood Sylph" as he is in evoking McCoy Tyner in the rolling chordal solo of "Aung San Suu Kyi" or showcasing lightning-fast runs in the nine-minute "Visitor From Somewhere." Shorter, too, is in full force, his lush soprano tone lighting up the playful interaction in "Visitor From Nowhere" and his trademark lyricism coloring the fluttering strings of notes in Hancock's "Sonrisa." In fact, about the only quibble with the album is the absence of Shorter's legendary tenor, no doubt unused because of the conflicting range with the piano, but missed nonetheless. The real joy of "1+1," though, is in the interaction between the pair. The
10 pieces are all rich with a playful give-and-take that would never be
possible in the presence of a larger group. The gentle call-and-response of
Shorter's "Diana" finds the pair echoing parts of the melody to each other,
and the latter half of "Visitor From Somewhere" (possibly the album's high
point), sparks a torrid musical communication only possible between musical
masters as familiar with each other as these two obviously are. The main
effect of this pervasive playfulness is on the tempos, which are elastic
and undefined throughout. The opening "Meridianne -- A Wood Sylph" is so contemplative it seems to be inspecting every turn of every
interval before it proceeds; "Visitor From Somewhere" crawls along like an
absent-minded snail until it picks up with some heated conversation toward
the end; and Hancock's "Hale-Bopp, Hip-Hop" lurches forward with a kind of
disjointed funkiness that manages to find oddity even in its relatively straight groove.
All of it is a delight, making for the kind of listening where we hang on every note because no one -- perhaps least of all the performers themselves -- knows what will happen next.
Ezra Gale is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Entelechy and Chew Magazine. |
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