Wayne Shorter - The All Seeing Eye (1966)

Note: the CD I listened to was the 2000 Rudy Van Gelder Edition.

Wayne Shorter was an intellectual, philosophical, spiritual man who continually asked big questions. His compositions and playing certainly reflect that transcendent approach to life. Blue Note Records describes this album thusly:

The great saxophonist & composer's goal for his daring 1965 album was to use "a wider range of colors and textures" while continuing his explorations of "life and the universe and God."

To that end, Shorter expanded his ensemble to an septet/octet. The music is energetic and challenging. It practically begged to be created in order to push post-bop jazz to a more expansive, more improvisational next level - Shorter's bandmate with Miles Davis, drummer Tony Williams, sometimes referred to it as "anti-music" or playing the opposite of what one expects. While I can appreciate the need and desire to move ahead as a musician, that doesn't mean that I necessarily enjoy listening to this album very often. I'll stick mainly with Speak No Evil or Native Dancer when I grab a Shorter album. I want to mention that Shorter was prolific around the time of this album's release as he moved forward in his work, not only as a band leader but also appearing frequently on other artists' releases and, most noteworthy, as the principal composer in the "second great quintet" of Miles Davis.

So I'm not wild about the music, but in preparing this post, I was led to a enjoyable three-part documentary series about Shorter, Zero Gravity (2023). Not perfect, but recommended nonetheless. The All Seeing Eye isn't mentioned, but the series helped put this album in context with not only Shorter's creative life, but also his personal life, '60s jazz culture, and the civil rights movement of the time.

Original liner notes by Nat Hentoff and 2000 liner notes by Bob Blumenthal. This was Shorter's ninth album as a leader, the sixth on the Blue Note label.

Shorter - tenor saxophone
Freddie Hubbard - trumpet, flugelhorn
Alan Shorter - flugelhorn (track 5)
Grachan Moncur III - trombone
James Spaulding - alto saxophone
Herbie Hancock - piano
Ron Carter - bass
Joe Chambers - drums

Reviews/ratings:

• Record World: "Wayne has produced six tunes that depict his fine writing ability and the growing maturity of his leadership."
• DownBeat (no rating): "the music is good, and if it is to your taste, you will not be disappointed."
• Billboard: ★★★★
• The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Album Guide (1999): ★★★★
• The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999): ★★★★

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks: The free jazz album is a programmatic five-piece suite. Of these five tracks, my favorite is the ballad Face Of The Deep, featuring a beautiful solo from Hancock. The final track, Mephistopheles, was written by Shorter's older brother Alan, who also plays flugelhorn on the track.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None, but speaking of Shorter and Miles Davis, this is one of my favorite social media posts:

Previously revisited for the blog:
Speak No Evil (1966)