“Lost”
from Wayne Shorter’s The Soothsayer (1965):
Before I kopped an iPod, Borders Bookstore was my favorite playground. Every other Friday or Saturday afternoon (pay weeks), you could find me at the Borders on 18th and L, blowing my check…most likely in the jazz section. On one afternoon, I remember having a tough time getting excited about the stack of CDs I was fumbling around with. That was until I picked up the Wayne Shorter piece. It was curious looking: an all black background with what looked to be the handle of a sword. I take a look at the title (The Soothsayer) and I’m thinking: “What the heck is a Soothsayer?” But the second I check the personnel – Tony Williams on drums, McCoy Tyner on keys, Ron Cater on bass, James Spaulding blowing alto sax, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet – it was wrap. That wasn’t just a sextet of giants; it was a sextet of musicians rarely heard together, particularly the rhythm section of Tony, McCoy and Ron (perhaps the greatest on their respective instruments). I was ripping the wrapping off that joint and dropping it my CD-walkman, almost before the cashier could scan it.
The first track was “Lost”, a sweeping, shift-changing, magnificent masterpiece that left me dazed for the full duration of my train-ride home.

Next to Duke Ellington, Wayne is probably the greatest jazz composer. Much of the straight-ahead jazz we hear coming from the new generation is steeped in the tradition of Miles’ Second Great Quintet. Albums, like Miles Smiles, Nefertiti and Sorcerer took the jazz language and sharpened it, added some serious words and phrases to the existing vocabulary. The man behind much of that music was Wayne. He penned the tunes and Miles arranged them. When he wasn’t serving under Miles’ genius-direction, Wayne was putting out classics of his own (Ju Ju, Speak No Evil). The Soothsayer wasn’t necessarily a classic album, but “Lost” is most definitely a classic song. McCoy, Spaulding, Freddie and Wayne each take inspired solos; all players are communicating brilliantly (jazz is the evolution of gospel/blue call-n-response) and the head (aka chorus/hook) that Wayne wrote is majesty…not majestic…majesty. From the second that brass-chorus began winding through the head until this very second, “Lost” has remained one of my favorite songs of all time.

“Black Conscience”
from The Jeremy Pelt Experiment’s live performance at Fat Cat in NYC (2003):
All these younger kats have these side bands that don’t record too often. They’re usually electric and feature music with a more contemporary sound – new-fusion, we might call it. Until recently, Pelt’s Experiment was one of these bands. Their live recordings would show up on his website, but not his studio recordings. The New York City gig-circuit was (and still is) like personal Petri dishes were these new ideas and experiments took place. So back then, recordings like, this (“Black Conscience”) served as my only connection with what was going on in the jazz world that the stodgy record labels were (are) afraid to release to the public.

I got hip to JP in 2000. I had heard him on Ralph Peterson’s Art of War. He was a young dude blowing a cerebral trumpet. Jazz Survivors cherish precocious, young voices just like enthusiast in any other genre. So you can imagine how exciting it was for me to see my man when he came through as part of Lonnie Plaxico’s octet. They had come to D.C. to play at the historic Blues Alley and it dawned on me, en route to the show that I might be preparing to witness the next great voice in jazz. I wasn’t blown away that night, but I was impressed and chose to follow his career closely from that point on. By 2003, JP had dropped two smokin’ solo releases and had been winning awards. To hear “Black Conscience”, though, was a bit of a shock. It was so gutter and nasty and funky and, almost, street. It reminded me of some of the stuff Miles was dropping in the early-70s.

This song represents what might lie ahead in jazz’ future, as these young musicians continue to wrestle more control from label-heads and uppity-fans. It’s always nice to be some of the first on a bandwagon. Hop on.