BLP 4182

Wayne Shorter - Juju

Released - May 1965

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, August 3, 1964
Wayne Shorter, tenor sax; McCoy Tyner, piano; Reggie Workman, bass; Elvin Jones, drums.

1396 tk.10 Yes Or No
1397 tk.12 Mahjong
1398 tk.15 House Of Jade
1399 tk.19 Juju
1400 tk.27 Deluge
1401 tk.29 Twelve More Bars To Go

Session Photos

Photos: Francis Wolff

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
JuJu	Wayne Shorter	August 3 1964
Deluge	Wayne Shorter	August 3 1964
House of Jade	Wayne Shorter	August 3 1964
Side Two
Mahjong	Wayne Shorter	August 3 1964
Yes or No	Wayne Shorter	August 3 1964
Twelve More Bars to Go	Wayne Shorter	August 3 1964

Liner Notes

IN his first Blue Note album, Night Dreamer (4173), Wayne Shorter was probing for a stronger and more personal identity in his music than had appeared on record previously. In the process, his aim was to relate his music to the way he responded to the life around him, to the times in which he lives. Although there was some humor in that album, the emphasis was primarily philosophical. The music was not solemn, but much of it was serious in terms of Shorter’s passion for self-exploration and in terms of the preoccupations in which he was involved during the writing of the compositions for that album.

Now, in a continuing effort to learn more about himself and his surroundings, Shorter has written and led what he regards as a tighter album than the first. “In this one,” he explains, “I was looking into myself with the aim of finding ways to entertain myself. At the some time, I was trying to move further into my own personality as it can be expressed in music. And in order to get more freedom and more space to do that, I decided to record with a quartet in which I would be the only horn.” Except for the absence of Lee Morgan, then, the personnel of the second Wayne Shorter set for Blue Note is the same as that which was so enlivening on the first album.

Shorter knew Reggie Workman’s playing well because they had been together for some time with Art Blakey. (Wayne is now with Miles Davis). Tyner and Jones, especially after that initial album on which they worked with Wayne, seemed to Shorter to be particularly suited to his aim of further self-liberation and self-probing. “McCoy,” Shorter points out, “has a certain freedom of movement, mentally as well as physically. He not only is on unusually resourceful pianist, but he puts so much of himself into the instrument that I can feel him coming out if it. In his case, his instrument is really an extension of himself and that’s why he has that much freedom with it. Another thing about McCoy is that you don’t have to talk to him too much. Once you explain something musically, he’s got the idea and proceeds to make a lot more out of it than what you told him."

Shorter considers Reggie Workman’s presence particularly necessary here because “the kind of broad sound Reggie has is just what I needed for the kinds of tunes I wrote for this date. He bases the melody. Without his kind of sound and without the sort of melodic bass line he plays, the melodic structures of my songs might have sounded obscure or they might hove been lost. And then, of course, after two years of working with Reggie in Blakey’s Messengers, I had no need at oil to explain to him what I was doing.”

As for Elvin Jones, he has, according to Shorter, “a way of expressing himself that makes it very easy for me to do what I want to do without having to guide Elvin. The thing about Elvin is that just about everything he does is so relevant."

All of the compositions are by Wayne Shorter. The opening Juju is thus titled because, Wayne recalls, "When I wrote this tune, I was thinking of Africa. I hadn't heard anyone use this title for a piece, and it seemed to fit because I was trying to picture the old African rites. "Voodoo" is a Haitain version of "juju", the original African term for certain kinds of religious-magical ceremonies. Its structure is somewhat reminiscent of the simplicity of an African chant. At the beginning of the melody there is a slight hint of Westernization, but that last repeated phrase of the melody does strike me as a kind of African chant."

On the complex, richly colored foundation provided by the rhythm section, Shorter builds a hotly eloquent evocation of the quasi-hypnotic moods associated with swirling ritual. But in this context, it is a ritual directed at greater self-affirmation and knowledge rather than communal release.

Deluge received its title because "in the opening statement of the song, I tried to give the feeling of something coming down - descending octaves - and then overflowing. In a way, I suppose the original impetus for this piece come from my first years of being taught the Bible in Sunday school and of hearing about deluges. Now, at my present age, I’m trying to write about how I felt as I was first hearing about that kind of phenomenon.” Here again, Shorter’s controlled passion fuses provocatively with the rhythmic currents set up by Jones, Workman and Tyner as well as with Tyner’s forcefully articulated solo.

The first eight measures of House Of Jade were written by Wayne’s wife, Irene. “She likes to play around on the piano occasionally,” Wayne says, “and she always comes up with something that strikes my ear. She’s not musically trained, but I’ve started to teach her from a book of piano exercises, and we have begun to collaborate. This time, she asked me to write down those first eight bars. I did and added the bridge. Then its goes back to another eight bars. The title came because there seemed to be on oriental flavor at the end of the first phrase. That flavor would be more pronounced if I played it more stiffly or if you heard it on a xylophone, but it’s there.” Also there is Wayne’s characteristic song-like lyricism, heightened by the variegatedly lyrical expressiveness of each of his colleagues.

Part of the genesis of Mahjong ¡s the possession by the Wayne Shorters of a mahjong set. “As I was writing the song,” Wayne recalls, “I was thinking of old China. And then I thought of how popular the game of mahjong had been in this country in the 1930’s and I decided to name the piece after the game rather than after something directly from old China.” The structure is intriguing. It’s set up in four-bar units: 4 melody, 4 rhythm, 4 melody, 4 rhythm, 4 bridge-type melody, 4 melody, 4 rhythm. Shorter conceived of the action of the piece as resembling that of a game. The 4 bar sections of rhythm without melody suggest players pausing to think of their next move. In the 4 bar sections of melody they are making that next move. The bridge connotes any kind of conflict between the players which stops the game as they argue their points. Programmotic guidelines aside, the performance is yet another illustration of Shorter’s deepening individuality and power.

Yes Or No is so titled because the tune is based on a “yes” part, followed by a “no” section and then back to “yes” again. The “yes” segment is bright-sounding, hopeful and majorish in harmony. The “no” part connotes skepticism, negativism, and circulates through minor strains. The final Twelve More Bars To Go has a double meaning in so for as its title is concerned. “The picture I had in mind,” says Wayne, “was of someone having a very good time, going around to every bar in town. It was as if he had a list in his hand. The second meaning is that this is a blues. 12 bars in form. In certain spots, incidentally, I interjected in the harmony what sounds like a backward progression. I did it both to get away from standard blues harmonies and also to picture a man, slightly intoxicated, who, as he tries to go forward, backs up.”

Having explored some of the lighter elements of his musical temperament in this second album of his for Blue Note, Wayne Shorter is now thinking ahead to a session that may, as he puts it, “border on comedy.” One reason is that his experience with Miles Davis has stimulated that port of him which leans toward humor. “Since being with Miles,” Wayne adds, “I find my playing has steadily veered toward expressing the happier side of life.” And the other reason for trying yet another emotional dimension is that Wayne feels impelled to keep searching — into himself and into the world in which he lives. As this album and as Night Dreamer hove demonstrated, Wayne Shorter is a musician of ceaseless curiosity, and he is able to transmute the results of that curiosity into consistently provocative jazz.

—NAT HENTOFF

RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes

A NEW LOOK AT JUJU

This album is a central document from perhaps the central year in the artistic development of Wayne Shorter. It was recorded in August 1964, as Shorter completed a term lasting nearly five years as a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. One month later, the tenor saxophonist joined Miles Davis for what proved to be an even lengthier tenure. This was also the year in which Shorter signed a Blue Note recording contract, and embarked on an intensive documentation of music under his own name that fans and followers considered long overdue.

Shorter's contributions to not one but two legendary editions of the Blakey band as both soloist and composer/musical director exceed those of any other Messenger save Horace Silver. Free For All and Indestructible, Blakey albums recorded for Blue Note earlier in '64, remain memorable examples of his Blakey period from late in Shorter's stay. He also contributed to several earlier Messenger sessions, and to Blue Note dates led by Freddie Hubbard, Donald Byrd and Lee Morgan; but prior to '64, Shorter's own recordings were surprisingly few in number. Before his Blue Note debut Night Dreamer was issued, Shorter's name had appeared on only two Vee Jay albums. That label's The Young Lions (a prescient title in more ways than one) might also be considered a Shorter date, given the prominence of his compositions; yet it, like most of Shorter's other studio appearances to that point, placed him in an ensemble with other horns. We now know that a Shorter quartet album had been cut in 1960, so "Ju Ju" is not chronologically his first work with just a rhythm section. It was the first to appear, however, which made this second Blue Note release a particularly revealing portrait.

The personnel Shorter enlisted for the album and the sound of the music they created makes consideration of the John Coltrane quartet so inevitable that the absence of reference to Coltrane in Nat Hentoff's liner notes must have been intentional. While he stressed the working relationship of Shorter and Workman, Hentoff might have added that Tyner and Jones had served in Coltrane's band almost as long as Shorter had in Blakey's, and that — before Jimmy Garrison became the bassist identified with classic Coltrane quartet music — Workman had filled the group's fourth slot. Several compositional elements employed by Shorter, including the triple meter of the title track and the harmonic suspensions on "Mahjong" and "Yes or No, " had been popularized by Coltrane's group, while the size and urgency of Shorter's sound recalls Coltrane as well. Yet Shorter brought his own slant to bear, just as he put a different spin on Blakey's music than his predecessors in that band had provided. The pithiness of Shorter's expression, its combination of boldness and vulnerability, and the similar juxtaposition of structural sophistication and melodic directness in the writing signal the emergence of a truly unique style, one issuing from a mind that (as Shorter's comments on the music demonstrate) is highly analytical yet suffused with the fantastic.

At this point, that style was clearly based in ideas that this particular rhythm section understood quite well. The music fits Tyner and Jones perfectly, especially in the pendular motion of several pieces, and one is hard pressed to imagine even so magnificent a trio as the Hancock/Carter/Williams unit of Miles Davis's quintet playing "Ju Ju" or "Mahjong" as effectively. Tyner, bursting with ideas throughout, takes dramatic advantage of his position as opening soloist on several tracks. Jones is power personified, and his complex polyrhythms are beautifully recorded. Both musicians add further evidence for the propositions that (a) great players who were recorded by several engineers sounded better when Rudy Van Gelder was engineering, and (b) great players who recorded at Van Gelder Studios for several labels sounded best when Alfred Lion was producing. Above all, though, the band serves Shorter's vision, and it is just as easy to hear intimations of the saxophonist's future as any allusions to another ensemble's present. For two examples, note how "Deluge" anticipates "Tom Thumb" and the uncommon beauty that links "House Of Jade" to "Infant Eyes."

As has been the case on several Blue Note sessions, compact disc technology allows for the release of alternate takes, and the two heard here are strong performances. The alternate "Ju Ju" is a model of urgency tempered by lyricism, though it lacks the abandon that ultimately makes the original master superior. On the other hand, the relaxed air of the alternate " House Of Jade" creates a distinct aura that strikes this listener as more effective than that informing the more deliberate master.

- Bob Blumenthal, 1999