Wayne Shorter's First Recordings—Never Released! Part 2 of 3, +Bonus

(Paying Subscribers, at the very bottom you will find the very first article that was ever published about Wayne, from 1959.)

Last time I told you more than you ever wanted to know about Wayne’s first recording session, on June 8, 1956, which was meant to be part of an album. The leader was the late composer/pianist John Eaton (not the Washington D.C. pianist John Eaton, who is still around). And we listened to two of the five recordings.

This time we’ll listen to one of the three remaining titles. (I’m still researching the details of the other two. By the way, way, that we don’t know the order in which they were recorded.) At the beginning of this recording, producer George Avakian accidentally announces “Hallelujah,” a song that we heard in Part One. Then he corrects himself to say “What Is This Thing Called Love.” Again, the arrangement is by Eaton. You’ll hear solos by the vibraphonist, mellophone player, and Wayne. Notice that the theme at the end is different from the one played at the beginning, though both use the chords of “What is This Thing.”

(As you just heard, my copy of this recording cuts off just before the very end of the last theme statement.)

A number of you noticed in Part One that Wayne sounds as though he’d been listening to musicians of the Lennie Tristano circle, especially tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh and alto saxist Lee Konitz. Shorter mentions them very briefly in his 2015 interview with Ethan Iverson (pianist, jazz historian, educator, and author of Transitional Technology on this site): Shorter said, “I just saw Lee Konitz, we met in Germany kind of recently. Warne Marsh, and Lee Konitz, and Lennie Tristano! (Wayne doesn’t mean that he also met Marsh and Tristano—they passed away long before. He’s just exclaiming his appreciation of all three.) A bit later Ethan says, “I feel like you were influenced by Warne Marsh, just a little bit, in the way you play sometimes.” To this, Wayne replies, “Warne Marsh. Yeah.” (Ethan played for him Wayne’s solo from the above track, which I provided.)

For comparison with early Wayne, here are Marsh and Konitz, separately, playing “What Is This Thing…”:

First, Marsh in December 1959, with Ronnie Ball (p), Peter Ind (b), and Dick Scott (d). Here it’s called “Coolhouse,” because Tadd Dameron famously wrote “Hothouse” using the same chords—get it? OK, here is Warne’s solo:

Marsh tended to challenge himself by playing very rhythmically complex phrases, something that Shorter is not doing particularly here. But notice Warne’s high notes at 1:20 and 1:50, and his fast run at 1:44; then go back and hear Wayne’s high notes at 4:28 and his fast runs at 5:00. (Incidentally, Wayne also begins his solo a little like Lee’s theme, which I haven’t provided here, and he quotes the theme of “Hot House” at 4:40.)

In January 1949, with Tristano on piano, Konitz recorded his original piece on the same chords, which he called “Subconscious-Lee” (as in “subconsciously”—another pun). The tempo on that one is quite a bit faster, so I slowed it down for an easier comparison with Shorter—just Lee’s solo:

PLEASE NOTE, nobody is saying that Wayne sounds exactly like either Marsh or Konitz, only that there is a “family resemblance.” Wayne went into the Army not long after the June ‘56 recording session, I think in the Fall of 1956, and he finished his service in the Fall of 1958. But he was stationed at Fort Dix, in his home state of New Jersey, so he was able to maintain some connection with the jazz scene. In fact by 1959, when Wayne made his first recordings that were released, he had been listening to Coltrane and the two had become friends. Wayne’s playing was greatly changed from what we hear in 1956.

Soon, we will continue this, I hope, fascinating look into the music of the young Wayne Shorter (22, almost 23 years old, at the time of this recording session).

All the best,
Lewis

NOTE: Paying Subscribers, scroll down for the first article ever published about Wayne.