Speak No Evil

Wayne Shorter (tenor sax), Freddie Hubbard (trumpet), Herbie Hancock (piano), Ron Carter (bass) and Elvin Jones (drums). From the album Speak No Evil (1966).

In 1964, Miles Davis finally convinced Shorter to join his quintet and he composed many themes for him, some of them memorable. While playing with Davis through his transition from acoustic post-bop to jazz fusion, Shorter began playing the soprano saxophone in 1968, since it was more suited to riding over the new electronic timbres than the tenor.

At the same time, he recorded eleven albums for Blue Note until 1970 with his own compositions, in which he used pentatonic melodies harmonized with pedal points and complexity; structured solos that reflected both the melody and the harmony of the composition; and extended breaks as an essential part of the music, in contrast to other effusive musicians of the time such as John Coltrane. In 1970 he formed with Joe Zawinul and Miroslav Vitous the jazz fusion group Weather Report. After Vitous left in 1973, Shorter and Zawinul co-led the group until they broke up in 1985.

This is a post-bop oriented theme, but with an understandable melody, with Hancock accompanying by making his own solo below. Then Shorter comes in playing suggestive and interesting phrases at medium tempo and sometimes it seems like he is fighting with the saxophone. He is followed by Hubbard with a well articulated, but somewhat rebellious melodic line. Next Hancock arrives with a restless and playful speech with a lot of drive. To conclude, the group re-exposes the theme fading out.