Wayne Shorter: Adam's Apple (Blue Note Classic Vinyl series) [BLUE NOTE]

Why you'll love it

This Blue Note Classic Vinyl series edition comes on 180g vinyl in stereo. Adam's Apple holds the first recording of Shorter's "Footprints," which the Miles Davis Quintet soon cut for Miles Smiles.

This edition

• Blue Note Classic Vinyl series
• 180g vinyl
• Stereo

About the album

Some tunes take decades to become standards. "Footprints" took a matter of months. Wayne Shorter recorded it for this album on February 24, 1966, and by the time Adam's Apple came out in 1967, his bandleader in the Miles Davis Quintet had already put his own stamp on it. It's been on every jazz student's music stand ever since.

This is a quartet date with Herbie Hancock on piano, Reggie Workman on bass and Joe Chambers on drums, and Shorter's tenor is front and centre throughout. The title track, cut three weeks earlier on February 3, struts on a soulful, bluesy groove, Jimmy Rowles' "502 Blues (Drinkin' and Drivin')" is a slow, dark-hued waltz, and "El Gaucho" has a light Latin lilt. Side two follows "Footprints" with the tender "Teru" and the restless "Chief Crazy Horse," all of them Shorter originals.

Writing in Jazz Journal, Mark Gardner called the record a tour de force for Shorter the soloist as distinct from Shorter the composer, and AllMusic ranks it with the best of his output from an incredibly fertile period. Gardner also urged readers, for goodness sake, not to miss this one, and we'd never argue with a man who says "for goodness sake."

Also at Kops: more Wayne Shorter on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Blue Note (cat# 4579756), a reissue of the 1967 album.