Speak No Evil
| Speak No Evil | ||||
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| Studio album by Wayne Shorter | ||||
| Released | June 1966 | |||
| Recorded | December 24, 1964 | |||
| Studio |
Van Gelder Studio Englewood Cliffs |
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| Genre | Post-bop, hard bop, modal jazz | |||
| Length | 42:11 | |||
| Label | Blue Note | |||
| Producer | Alfred Lion | |||
| Wayne Shorter chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |  |
| The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide | |
Speak No Evil is the sixth album by Wayne Shorter. It was released in June 1966 by Blue Note Records. The music combines elements of hard bop and modal jazz. The cover shows Wayne Shorter's first wife, Teruka (Irene) Nakagami, whom he met in 1961.
Having employed a version of John Coltrane's "classic quartet" rhythm section on both of his previous albums for Blue Note, Shorter altered the configuration somewhat on Speak No Evil, suggesting the influence of his recent drafting into Miles Davis's "second quintet". Held over from the previous session is Coltrane's drummer Elvin Jones, but newly arrived from Davis's band were, on piano and bass respectively, Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter. Rounding out the quintet on trumpet is Freddie Hubbard, an associate of Shorter's from his days as musical director of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. Hubbard was also, by 1964, a frequent collaborator of Hancock's. The line-up is very similar to the later VSOP quintet, with Elvin Jones instead of Tony Williams on drums.
Shorter brought six new compositions to the Christmas Eve session. According to Shorter (as quoted in Don Heckman's liner notes), in writing the material for this album he was "thinking of misty landscapes with wild flowers and strange, dimly-seen shapes — the kind of place where folklore and legends are born. And then I was thinking of things like witch burnings too." Fairy tales were also an inspiration: the bluesy "Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum" is titled after the trademark exclamation of the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk.
Generally, the material represents a return to "changes"-based hard bop, but combined with modal elements, after a period of predominantly modal music exemplified by JuJu. But the tone of the music is – appropriately for the often-macabre subject matter – rather dark and eerie.
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Wikipedia