Wayne Shorter: Schizophrenia (Blue Note Tone Poet series) [BLUE NOTE]

Why you'll love it

This Tone Poet edition comes on 180g vinyl in a gatefold jacket with Francis Wolff's session photos. It's a sextet date from Shorter's Miles Davis years, with "Tom Thumb," "Miyako" and "Playground" among his finest tunes.

This edition

• Blue Note Tone Poet series
• 180g vinyl
• Gatefold jacket
• Stereo mix

About the album

Wayne Shorter joined Miles Davis in 1964 and spent the next few years writing for the Miles Davis Quintet and recording his own albums on the side, and on March 10, 1967, he brought two of his quintet bandmates to Van Gelder Studio. Blue Note issued it in 1969.

Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter are on piano and bass, Joe Chambers is on drums, and the front line adds Curtis Fuller's trombone and James Spaulding on alto and flute. "Tom Thumb" swings with a sly boogaloo, "Go" drifts, the title track pulls between two moods, and Spaulding's own "Kryptonite" is the one cover. "Miyako," a ballad for his daughter, is among the loveliest things he wrote. Three horns up front give the arrangements a rich, almost orchestral colour, with Shorter's tenor at the centre of it.

Francis Wolff produced the date and took the liner photos. AllMusic heard it living right on the border between post-bop and free jazz, aware of both sides. For a record called Schizophrenia, it knows exactly what it wants.

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

Tracklist

Listen

On Blue Note (cat# B0036692-01), a reissue of the 1969 album.