Wayne Shorter: Celebration Volume 1

Wayne Shorter never rested on his or anyone's laurels. So when at the start of this perilous century he convened his great, late-stage quartet with pianist Danilo Pérez, bassist John Patitucci, and drummer Brian Blade it wasn't to take the bandstand and placate audience and skeptics with greatest hits or refurbished takes on old standards. It was to create new and now again, just as he had with Art Blakey (1959-19630), Miles Davis (1964-1970), and Weather Report (1971-1986).

In Shorter's expansionist and expressionist vision, the quartet needed to be more than a high-flying jazz ensemble. They had to complement and enlarge upon his orchestral abstractions and multiverse sci-fi theories. They had to function as a chamber group and polyrhythmic riff machine. In other words, they had to be composed, contained, and, most importantly, flexible. Seriously flexible. Which they proved repeatedly on such classic releases as Without a Net (Blue Note, 2013), Algeria (Blue Note, 2003) and the 2018 epic Emanon (Blue Note).

Now there is Celebration, Volume 1 the first in a planned series of Shorter curated archival releases. And it is a hands-down doozy. Right up there with any of the saxophonist's great recordings from any time in his storied career.

Recorded at the Stockholm Jazz Festival in 2014, Shorter, Perez, Patitucci, and Blade are in sheer renaissance form. Alongside his most trusted narrators, Shorter, the master storyteller, begins the tale slowly with intrigue and a lace-like unraveling. Piano and bass open the collaborative fiction "Zero Gravity to the 15th Dimension" with a quiet studying while Shorter whispers his plot. Blade pushes the exposition forward. It is a moody concert opener: expectant yet tone setting; like a string ensemble running through its final cues and tunings. It keeps you suspended, like zero gravity, without all the erroneous side effects, i.e. space motion sickness or atrophy.

It morphs effortlessly into Arthur Penn's well-traveled 1919 ballad "Smilin' Through" (first heard on Beyond the Sound Barrier (Verve!, 2005). The quartet holds steady to the state of play Shorter is winsome yet purposefully establishing wanderlust, wonder and active imagination. The briefly beautiful "Zero Gravity to the 11th Dimension" and "Zero Gravity to the 12th Dimension" serve to set up the rising action of "Zero Gravity -Unbound" wherein the rhythm section becomes more forceful in their approach to the narrative.

A quartet favorite, the Miles era "Orbits" surges argumentatively, as Perez —both foil and fail-safe —interjects and enables Patitucci and Blade's fevered, concussive whirl. Shorter swirls eloquently, simultaneously intersecting and running parallel. "Edge of the World (End Title)" is its own exultation, swelling from crescendo to crescendo with Perez quietly articulating and Shorter calling to the higher angels.

The elliptical "Lotus" (a centerpiece of Emanon) and "She Moves Through The Fair" close out Celebration, Volume 1 on a potent note, with each track entering in like a prayer chant, only to refocus into a jumble of post-bop glory with Blade's rippling thunder underscoring the subtle shades of his bandmates.

In the accompanying liner notes, Shorter's widow, Carolina, quotes Shorter, (ever the wise man) as shouting "You've got to come and hear this sh*t!" upon his first listening. You've got to come and hear this sh*t! Indeed.

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