''Speak No Evil'' is the sixth album by

Wayne Shorter Wayne Shorter (born August 25, 1933) is an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Shorter came to prominence in the late 1950s as a member of, and eventually primary composer for, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. In the 1960s, he joined Miles Dav ...

. It was released in June 1966 by Blue Note Records. The music combines elements of

hard bop Hard bop is a subgenre of jazz that is an extension of bebop (or "bop") music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz that incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospe ...

and

modal jazz Modal jazz is jazz that makes use of musical modes, often modulating among them to accompany the chords instead of relying on one tonal center used across the piece. Although precedents exist, modal jazz was crystallized as a theory by compose ...

, and features Shorter on tenor saxophone, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter and drummer

Elvin Jones Elvin Ray Jones (September 9, 1927 – May 18, 2004) was an American jazz drummer of the post-bop era. Most famously a member of John Coltrane's quartet, with whom he recorded from late 1960 to late 1965, Jones appeared on such widely celebrate ...

. The cover photo is of Shorter's first wife, Teruko (Irene) Nakagami, whom he met in 1961.

Reception

''Speak No Evil'' was one of several albums Shorter recorded for Blue Note in 1964, his first year as a member of Miles Davis's mid-1960s quintet. The album is generally regarded as one of Shorter's finest, and also a highlight of the Blue Note catalogue. ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' selected this album as part of its suggested "Core Collection" calling it "by far Shorter's most satisfying record". Murray Horwitz stated in 2001 that "''Speak No Evil'' is sort of a consolidation of Wayne Shorter's compositional excellence. It's so thorough and consistent and wide-ranging. It's almost a manifesto for his ideas. Those ideas were new 40 years ago, but they're still fresh today."Horwitz, Murray (August 1, 2001
"Wayne Shorter: 'Speak No Evil'"
npr.org

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author

Ian Carr Ian Carr (21 April 1933 – 25 February 2009) was a Scottish jazz musician, composer, writer, and educator. Carr performed and recorded with the Rendell-Carr quintet and jazz-fusion band Nucleus, and was an associate professor at the Guildhall ...

wrote it is "a classic album in terms of both composition and improvisation, and has been inspirational for many musicians". ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' critic

Ben Ratliff Ben Ratliff (born 1968 in New York City) is an American journalist, music critic and author. Ratliff is the son of an English mother and an American father, growing up in London and in Rockland County, New York. From 1996 to 2016, he wrote a ...

included the album in his publication ''Jazz: A Critic's Guide to the 100 Most Important Recordings'' stating that it offers "the first taste of a gnomic compositional style that would haunt jazz forevermore. ..Just about everybody playing jazz born in the 1950s and after accepts it as a foundation."

Releases

''Speak No Evil'' was initially released on LP in 1966, as BLP 4194 and BST 84194. The first CD release was in 1987. A 1999 CD version, supervised by

Rudy Van Gelder Rudolph Van Gelder (November 2, 1924 – August 25, 2016) was an American recording engineer who specialized in jazz. Over more than half a century, he recorded several thousand sessions, with musicians including John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Theloni ...

, included an alternate take of "Dance Cadaverous". A remastered limited edition was issued in Japan on SHM-CD in 2013, including two previously unissued alternate takes. In January 2020, a new vinyl version remastered by Kevin Gray from the original analog master tapes was released by Blue Note as part of their Classic Vinyl Reissue Series.

Track listing

''All compositions by Wayne Shorter.''

Personnel

* Freddie Hubbard –

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

–

tenor saxophone The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (while ...

* Herbie Hancock –

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

* Ron Carter – bass *

– drums

References

External links

Wayne Shorter - ''Speak No Evil'' (rec. 1964, rel. 1966) album releases & credits
at

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Wayne Shorter - ''Speak No Evil'' (rec. 1964, rel. 1966) album to be listened
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{{Authority control 1966 albums Blue Note Records albums Wayne Shorter albums Albums produced by Alfred Lion Albums recorded at Van Gelder Studio Hard bop albums