Wayne Shorter - Moto Grosso Feio
Released - August 1974
Recording and Session Information
A&R Studios, NYC, April 3, 1970
Wayne Shorter, soprano, tenor sax; Dave Holland, acoustic guitar, bass; John McLaughlin, 12-string guitar; Miroslav Vitous, bass; Ron Carter, bass, cello; Chick Corea, drums, marimba, percussion; Michelin Prell, drums, percussion.
6122 tk.4 Moto Grosso Feio
6123 tk.7 Antiqua
6124 tk.9 Vera Cruz
6125 tk.12 Iska
6126 tk.14 Montezuma
Track Listing
| Side One | ||
| Title | Author | Recording Date |
| Moto Grosso Feio | Wayne Shorter | April 3 1970 |
| Montezuma | Wayne Shorter | April 3 1970 |
| Side Two | ||
| Antigua | Wayne Shorter | April 3 1970 |
| Vera Cruz | Milton Nascimento | April 3 1970 |
| Iska | Wayne Shorter | April 3 1970 |
Liner Notes
Everybody felt like acting, playing a part other than themselves. In keeping with the jungle atmosphere they were trying to create, each master musician remarked of the unique freedom of this session. The names are familiar. Dave Holland had just left Miles Davis' band, and John McLaughlin had recently parted with Tony Williams. Chick Corea was in a transitional period, as was Miroslav Vituous. The drums and percussion were to be handled by Michelin Prell, a nineteen-year-old Belgian prodigy whom Shorter had known since her infancy.
Not only was this gathering a first of its kind, but nobody played the instruments they were known for. McLaughlin favored a 12-string acoustic guitar over his electric arsenal. Holland, a superb bassist, also picked up an acoustic guitar. Ron Carter played the cello. There were to be no keyboard instruments. Chick Corea found himself a set of marimbas. He claimed he wanted to capture the sound of apes and wild animals cavorting through the jungle trees.
Shorter's main theme, entitled "Moto Grosso Feio," refers to a Brazilian Amazon jungle in which, Shorter reports, nine nuns disappeared and were neved found. It is a lush, enticing narcotic paradise - attractive and deadly.
"I feel Spanish today", remarked John McLaughlin. He proceeded to initiate the first theme of "Moto Grosso Feio" with what Shorter calls a "Mediterranean" mood-classical and Spanish, but unmistakably McLaughlin. The mood presented is one of a jungle sunrise. At first all is still but the light of the sun. Slowly the day begins with the tentative sounds of the birds and animals. Life sprouts in the jungle like a flower.
Mood is actually what this music is all about. With the lush setting in mind, the musicians employ a variety of dramatic colorings - all played on acoustic instruments - to produce a sort of soundtrack whereby the listener can also experience the sights, sounds, smells and instincts, the poisonous beauty of "Moto Grosso Feio."
In this music, as in a jungle, lives the frantic and split-second alongside the moody and relaxed. As the mother lion basks contentedly in the sun, madcap monkeys dart through the trees overhead, and a blood-hungry jaguar waits for his prey in the nearby bushes. The musicians capture this variety of moods and intensities, as Wayne Shorter's soprano sax explodes languidly over a McLaughlin one-note machine-gun rhythm. One is usually not heard with the other. Percussion drifts into the mix, building nervously until one is caught up in a flurry of drums and the peaceful jungle transforms into a dark, foreign, menacing maze of unseen eyes and animal shrieks.
Shorter's languid sax now flails like a harpooned marlin. The drums crash relentlessly as the jaguar suddenly tenses his muscles and pounces upon his unsuspecting prey. Just as it had begun - quick and violent - the attack subsides. Tranquility returns. The frenzied sax now sings like a plaintive violin.
This music is an adventure. Like its namesake, the Amazon jungle, it cannot be second-guessed. It taunts pattern and definition.
As with the music, the album itself is a lucky accident. Recorded in August of 1970, it remained buried in the vaults of Blue Note Records. The session producer, Duke Pearson, brought it to the attention of Blue Note head, George Butler. Butler contacted Wayne Shorter, who had first signed with Blue Note in 1964 and remained there until 1971. Shorter had forgotten about the tapes, although he did recall a session of his featuring what now amounts to the top names in modern jazz - McLaughlin, Corea, Holland, Vituous, Carter. Shorter himself is currently riding high with the excellent Weather Report, a group he co-founded with pianist Josef Zawinul.
Butler and Shorter searched through the Blue Note tapes. These sessions were nowhere to be found. Shorter narrowed the date of the sessions to August, 1970. Still, the tapes did not turn up. Finally, in the last possible storage space, an unmarked box of tape was unearthed. It contained no identifying "cue sheets" of song titles or players. But after two bars, Shorter experienced that welcome flood of recognition. This was it. There was McLaughlin's "Mediterranean" figure and Shorter's own fluid soprano.
What this is then, is another, almost forgotten episode in Wayne Shorter's mercurial musical career. From his professional beginnings with Art Blakey to his emergence as a major compositional talent first with Miles Davis and now Weather Report, Shorter has proven himself a first-rate communicator of the music inside himself. "Moto Grosso Feio" is an adventure, a vision carried by a collection of master musicians. Its colors and intensity will not be repeated. Like all unique work, it is timeless, a junction at which Shorter imagined the beast in the beauty and turned it into music.
Clayton Frohman
Album Coordinator: George Butler
Arranged by: Wayne Shorter
Recorded at: A & R Recording Studio, New York City
Recording Engineer: Tony May
Editing Engineer: Christina Hersch Recorded: August 26, 1970
Art Direction: Bod Cato
Design / Graphics: John Williams
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