Wild Flower

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

Weather Report featured a wide variety of musicians, including the great electric bassist Jaco Pastorious, and the group recorded sixteen albums. Shorter’s playing became softer, more conscious and melodic, and more servil to Zawinul’s concepts, playing mostly the soprano. In the late 1970s and early 1980s he toured with the V.S.O.P. group, made up of former members of the mid-1960s Miles Davis Quintet, but with Freddie Hubbard replacing Davis. From 1977 to 2002 he participated in ten albums with Joni Mitchell.

After leaving Weather Report he continued to play jazz fusion, but the result was not as expected. In 1988 he toured with Carlos Santana and recorded with Wallace Roney, Hancock, Carter and Williams an album dedicated to Miles Davis after his death. In 1995 he recorded High Life co-produced with electric bassist Marcus Miller. In 2000 he formed a permanent acoustic quartet under his name playing his own compositions with which he has recorded three albums and has received great praise from fans and critics for the strength of his tenor saxophone.

This is a remarkable ballad with a slight swing in 3/4 meter with Hancock occasionally playing in an eccentric way beneath. Immediately Shorter arrives full of lyricism, but with an intricate and exceptional melodic line. Hubbard follows him by making a more conventional discourse and using inspired and well articulated phrases. Next Hancock enters proposing fast and innovative passages, but then slows down. At last, the group re-exposes the enigmatic ballad.