17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Smart tunes, great playing, Wayne 'n' Herbie . . ., March 12, 2004
This review is from: Something More (Audio CD)
. . . What more could you want? This late eighties classic session on the German label In & Out (who also brought us the great and largely unheard band Roots) features Herbie Hancock (piano and keyboards), Wayne Shorter (soprano and tenor sax), Al Foster (drums), and the brilliant (and largely unknown) Japanese trumpeter Shunzo Ohno. With leader Buster Williams, who has played with Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, Art Blakey, Freddie Hubbard, Chet Baker, Woody Shaw, and McCoy Tyner, this is a killer band. Somehow, this disc has flown almost completely under the radar. And that's a shame, given the level of playing consistently on display.
The first thing one notices is that Ohno easily hangs with such top drawer jazz talent. He constantly solos with invention and conviction, his tone is dark, thick, and mysterious, and his conception definitely comes out of Woody Shaw. Shorter also is in fine form. Dividing his time about equally between soprano and tenor (and, personally, I'm thrilled to hear him devoting so much space to the latter), he shows that he has always been as brilliant a player as composer. He tenor tone--rich, meaty, hortatory--is unique in jazz.
One wonders why such glorious music has languished almost unheard. The reasons are probably pretty ready to hand. First, the packaging is atrocious. The typography is virtually illegible, the band members' names almost unreadable. Second, this label has never received proper distribution stateside. I believe I picked it up at Chicago's Jazz Record Mart, one of the most complete jazz stores in the country. Third, the late eighties were almost a dead zone for jazz.
What ought to happen is that some smart label like Evidence get the rights to this disc, repackage it, and heavily promote it. But as that probably isn't in the cards, the next best thing is for everyone who reads this review (all three of you) to snatch this baby up pronto. I guarantee you won't be disappointed.
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