Customer Reviews

Beyond the Sound Barrier

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This follow-up to 2002's brilliant Footprints Live! finds Wayne Shorter's working group performing at an even higher level. Each member seems to have grown in stature, and the group sound is both more cohesive and adventurous. Danilo Perez in the piano chair especially impresses. The young Panamanian not only provides very smart and sophisticated chordal underpinnings, he constantly spins off intriguing solo lines and bright staccato flourishes. Brian Blade in the interim has added a wide variety of percussive moves on his kit, providing a huge energy boost to the proceedings. And if he occasionally sounds a little overbearing, it's good to hear the drums recorded so up-front in the mix. Bassist Patitucci plays freer and with greater abandon than I've ever heard him before, yet still providing absolutely apposite grounding. He can also whip off some stunning solo statements, both arco and pizzicato, as on the Mendelssohn piece, "On Wings of Song," perhaps the most amazing track on the record, with its shifting moods, colors, tempi, and sonorities.

But it's the leader who makes the strongest impression, especially on tenor. Over the years, he's developed an approach to his instrument that is completely his own. It sounds as if he's got a huge volume of breath undergirding his sound, resulting in a kind of restrained power that can dance or float or launch out with huge expressivity. His soprano playing, more typically virtuosic, often leaves listeners scratching their heads in consternation at the power, fleetness, tonal control, and sheer inventiveness of line. Check out, especially, his extended solo at the end of "Joyrider," for a taste of what I mean. His solo on "Over Shadow Hill Way," if less obviously spectacular, displays perhaps an even grander conceptual brilliance, and the piece, so rhythmically infections and, finally, overwhelming in its forcefulness, ends up making perhaps the strongest impression of any track on the disc. Shorter can sometimes be overly cerebral and somewhat chilly, especially on soprano, as on his duo recording with Herbie Hancock, 1 + 1, but although he here plays with marvelously conceived solos that sometimes venture into the stratosphere, he never loses sight of the architecture of the piece, maintaining both an emotional and formal connection no matter how far out he goes. And it just keeps getting better. The solo he takes on "Adventures Aboard the Golden Mean" simply astounds.

The songs, five by Shorter, one standard, one classical piece (the Mendelssohn) and one group improvisation, seem to move almost seamlessly from one to another. Obviously, a great deal of care went into their selection and sequencing, resulting in almost a suitelike effect. And if there's a little too much audience reaction retained on the disc for this listener, for once, at least, it's justified by what one has just been heard. Really, this band makes simply glorious music, and you can see why the audience goes nuts.

The recording is startling in its clarity and precision, both from the standpoint of the band's near-flawless playing and the quality of the sound that the disc captures: Each instrument is precisely situated within the sound signature, carefully balanced against the others, enabled to achieve is proper voice, timbre, and sonority.

Explosive, heady, emotive, sophisticated, approachable: This is jazz at its absolute finest.

I recommend Michelle Mercer's recently published biography, Footprints: The Life and Work of Wayne Shorter, for insight into this quartet and its working method. She spent a great deal of time with Wayne Shorter and his band and she paints a vivid portrait of the group on the road. Mercer's biography also tells the story of the many obstacles Shorter overcame to finally create this amazing band.

And this band is amazing, the best working group in jazz, but that was already established on the dynamic 2002 recording Footprints Live. As previous reviewers pointed out, the improvisation here is more vibrant and refined. Even better, on Beyond the Sound Barrier, there's an opportunity for listeners to trace a continuum in Wayne Shorter's far-ranging oeuvre. He's in a late period of his career and like the greatest classical musicians is reaching a mature synthesis of an entire lifetime of music.

For example, the band's acoustic reworkings of material from Wayne Shorter's fusion years might allow fusion detractors to hear that he was using the same approach to music all along, no matter if electric or acoustic instruments were involved. On his 80s recordings for Columbia, "Over Shadow Hill Way" and "Joy Ryder" featured a wealth of overlayed melodies and harmonies, though the backbeats and electronic textures obscured the good stuff for many listeners (Musicians, who have long embraced Shorter's Columbia recordings, heard it all along). On this current recording, the acoustic setting highlights the rhythmic and harmonic beauty and complexity of these tunes, for all to hear.

Other examples: "As Far As The Eye Can See" is a reworking of "Go," from Shorter's Blue Note era. "Adventures Aboard the Golden Mean" is actually a section from "High Life." Shorter often attests that he's never actually finished with a work of music. There's ample evidence of that here.

Of course, you don't need to know anything about Shorter's musical history to appreciate the music on Beyond the Sound Barrier. These guys communicate with a depth, animation, and joy that anyone can appreciate. See them live if you can.

When I first heard Wayne Shorter's "comeback" album, 2002's Footprints! Live, I was totally blown away. At nearly 70 years of age, Shorter had founded one of modern jazz's most innovative, explosive, energetic bands. Now with their second live album, the quartet ups the ante. "Beyond the Sound Barrier" should be heavily considered for the best jazz album of the year, and could also be one of the best in Shorter's long, dynamic career. Here, the band plays with more energy and passion than they did on Footprints Live. The whole atmosphere seems to have been super-charged here. The band, after a moody, ethereal intro, really gets rocking about halfway through the opening track, a TOTALLY SUBVERSIVE cover of the 1941 film theme, "Smilin' Through". That subversion and highly cerebral mood continues throughout much of the album. Shorter's work on soprano is some of the most extreme, impassioned playing I've ever heard. And he is constantly supported by his equally talented rhythm section of Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade. The band has an almost uncanny ability to turn on a dime from quiet and restrained to wild and boiling.

Everyone who calls themselves a jazz fan ought to run out to the store and buy this album right now!

I am one of those hard-core jazz heads that really like Footprints-Live! but ask most dedicated fans and they will tell you: Wayne Shorter is great, the music is heavy - but its not particularly moving. not particularly energetic. I'll admit, Footprints was more than a little cerebral. I went to Carnegie Hall to check out the quartet live in the summer of 2003 and the show was interesting, but not remotely exciting.

Beyond the Sound Barrier sounds like a totally different band. While the inescapable complexity is still there, an exciting forcefulness bubbles underneath everything. the result is the effusive, rhythmically assertive sections are overflowing with action and energy and the quieter more introspective section seem to simmer with potential energy. this is the wayne shorter that we, who knew him, remember and love. he leads this ensemble in their radical sonic shifts and plays beautiful throughout. the rhythm section of Danilo, John, and Brian are among the best i have ever heard live or on record. they simply seem to get it from one another.

this album is beautiful. its great to see that some musicians can create such great music in their golden years as opposed to the usual sad story of desperation and lost skill. Here to Wayne Shorter - may he live long (even still) and keep creating music that we have to catch up to.

I have seen this group live and this album is an accurate documentation of the group's progression from Footprints Live to the present. I think it is important that we know where these songs come from and how they where interpreted first. Albums like Joy Ryder, Phantom Navigator, and Atlantis are good examples if you can find them. Some of these same songs heard on Beyond the Sound Barrier are played in a electric band form in the previously listing albums, then to here them 15 years later in quartet form is amazing. The groups interplay with each other is so indepedent, sometimes you wonder where is Wayne Shorter?, and then there he is smack in your face or tapping you on your shoulder ever slightly and saying, "Hey I'm over here." In this quartet Wayne Shorter plays every role imaginable. He is the horn soloist, but also the accompanist for Brian Blade, Danilo Perez or John Patitucci, and all four of them are catalyst as well. It is that and many other facits that make Wayne Shorter's Quartet truly amazing.

These performances by THE quartet around the world between 2002 and 2004 is awesome. The sound is excellent and the alchemy works too. The average listener might be awed when listening to Wayne Shorter play on his fractured jazz soprano saxophone or Brian Blade's drums while runs of quality music flow forth from their fingertips. I saw and heard this band on many festivals and from the beginning I knew this band was this good (listen to "Over Shadow Hill Way" and its little brother "Adventures aboard the golden mean" or the first track from chrono 6'00...!)

This music makes no bow to commercialism. People who aren't interested in musical experimentation and boundary-smashing might find it hard to take. But make no mistake this is as good as music or art can get. This is Wayne Shorter at his best and music at its best.

Anyway, to me this record has got three weaknesses which are :
1) some pieces are shunted (As Far as the eye can see, Tinker Bell and Beyond the sound barrier). For this, I was tempted to put a 4 star review.
2) no accurate notation about the places where the concerts took place.
3) it gives the impression of a compilation (concerts from 2002-2004). Why not select a great concert and make a record from it ? Let's remember Miles in Berlin for instance... That's a tough decision to make. There must have been concerts better than others, haven't there, Rob ?... ;)

I bought two abstract paintings, the first ever, within weeks of purchasing this CD.No coincidence I suggest.Coming from a pop/rock/fusion/jazz (in that order) life journey, so-called "free" jazz was always a stretch, but this....???? I bought two grammy winning CD's, this and Pat Metheny's The way up, at the same time, but Wayne and Co have monopolised my car CD. The gamut of emotions and reactions it has provoked still confounds me. If life is the process of mining order from chaos, of perceiving the benevolent truth from the prevelant insanity this is it's soundtrack.
This is the first work of Wayne's I have heard since Weather Report, and had assumed his return to traditional quartet, was a retreat not an advance. Well...what a revelation! With this lineup he has been able to anchor free improvisation to a minimal amount of structure, creating such vivid dynamic pieces that never get stuck in cliches, that the listener is constantly challenged to keep up. The "ORDER" is there to be "MINED" from the apparent chaos. This is the reward for repeated listening.
Could another collection of individuals pull it off? Not that I'm aware of. Jazz has always been the perfect musical metaphor for the American political experiment, how to allow every individual the maximum amount of freedom of expression, whilst avoiding a collective descent into chaos.
Wayne is showing us the way ahead here......

I understand what it is about this disc that causes some fans of Shorter to regard it somewhat less than affectionately. This is taut, angular music: at times it almost seems more like modernist-classical music than like "true" jazz. But there is a power to these selections that only begin to reveal themselves upon repeated listens. For most listeners this will likely take some getting used to and--yes--some effort, but it is an effort that will repay itself many times over. Highly recommended.

This is my kind of album. Rather than the usual straight ahead "head, solo, solo, head," it breaks from the formula to build amazingly on each member of the quartet's ideas. Not one of them could be considered soloing at a given time, but rather they all contribute musical images into a pot, and out springs genious. By far the best album I've bought all year.

Different people will approach this and other recent Shorter albums along different paths. My primary points of reference were Shorter's "JuJu" and "Speak No Evil" albums from 1964. Many other listeners might approach Shorter along the same path. So, I think it's important to point out that this 2005 album and the similar 2002 album "footsteps live!" are very different from those classic Blue Note albums. While the new albums both feature an acoustic saxophone quartet just like "JuJu" had, the music on the new albums sounds much more contemporary.

One minor difference is that Shorter now plays both tenor and soprano saxophone. Another difference is that the recordings were of live performances. But the primary differences are that Shorter gives a lot more space to his rhythm section while playing shorter segments above it and that he seems intent on engaging in improvisational dialogue with them rather than in laying down the original melodies. While the quality of this musical conversation is of very high caliber, it is easy to lose track of the melodies. At times, it seems like the group is just jamming without any underlying framework; there probably is one that I just lack the ears to hear. As other reviewers have noted, this is music that requires careful listening. This album does convey more intensity than "footprints live!" did, which makes it a stronger effort. The sound is outstanding.

It is interesting to compare recent albums from Wayne Shorter and Sonny Rollins. While Rollins became a star earlier than Shorter, he is only 3 years older. Both musicians are still alive and still recording albums. However, Rollins' playing and albums are not really that different from his playing in the 50s and 60s; he still plays popular standards and calypsos and still lays down long solos that frequently return to the underlying melody. (Check out "Without a Song" and "Sonny, Please".) In contrast, Shorter has evolved through many phases during his long career and there is no mistaking any of his recent recordings for one from the 60s. Additionally, Shorter has assembled a quartet of truly outstanding musicians. While Sonny's working band is certainly competent, nobody in it is as talented as Danilo Perez, John Patitucci, or Brian Blade. (Or perhaps Sonny doesn't give them a chance to show off their talents.)

While one could criticize Rollins for his lack of evolution as well as for not challenging himself by playing with more talented musicians, his recent albums are full of good tunes and impressive sax solos and are a lot of fun to listen to. While I respect what Shorter and his quartet are doing and am impressed by their talents, the Shorter albums are not as fun or exciting as the Rollins albums. Shorter's quartet might be artistically superior, but I find Rollins' tunes more memorable and am more likely to pull out one of Sonny's albums when I'm in the mood for jazz.