Review: Wayne Shorter Quartet

People were streaming in and it was clear that the museum was unprepared for the turn out; paying for a good sound system and holding the performance outside in the courtyard would have been a much better solution than keeping the masses literally fifteen to twenty people deep all along the outskirts of the stairwell. The whole scenario, however, spoke to the vitality of jazz, especially because while the crowd thinned a bit before the second set, the space stayed packed right till the last notes were played.

While it may be odd to have such titanic improvisers play a commissioned composition, the subject matter seemed a natural fit: Shorter’s cinematic, episodic vision is the perfect fit for an hour-long musical journey through an art filled world. Light bass and tapping drums began the exploration, along with a minor piano drone. A signature lush heralding call from the soprano, and Shorter switched to tenor and let the music drift about. Whenever he picked up the former instrument, he had more presence; while he’s known as a tenor player, the soprano sax has been his dominant tool for any number of years now. But as he switched back and forth in the early passages of Lotus, it was as though he was echoing himself in slow, delayed callbacks. Meanwhile Blade was switching sticks constantly, issuing subtle shifts in sound and Perez would guide the tempo and tone from time to time, but this was largely Wayne’s piece; it was his voice that commanded attention.

Instinctively I wanted there to be rooms, musical rooms that we moved through, and maybe there were; there were certainly any number of short passages, but they melted into one another, the edges blurry. Maybe there were individual paintings or statues or artifacts, the museum is full of artifacts, being evoked, but any given moment seemed to draw heavily on what preceded it, was colored by the movement from one idea to the next. At some point there was a lumbering down a dark hall, Blade and Perez crashing and tumbling down while Shorter’s soprano screamed up in the other direction. At another, the rhythm section were all playing in a tangle of different times, but when the chaos fell away, it was resolved with a short, soulful tenor solo. At the center of the piece was a classic WSQ blowing session, explosive drums and driving bass with clarion calls issuing into the open space above, which garnered a huge cheer from the assembled crowd.

Shorter trailed off with his idea as the rest of the band grew quiet, and it became clear that they had left the composition when Patitucci began to laugh and looked over to Blade; across the way Perez was smiling too. They all grinned fixedly, watching for a quick, low hand to bring them back to a howling climax, and thereafter all four members were literally flipping back and forth through reams of sheet music, trying to reorient themselves like they didn’t want to miss any given work of art.

By this point the composition began to make sense: true to its name, Lotus unfolded slowly until there were too many moments to keep track of or contemplate, and it became more brilliant, more overwhelming, till it swept the listener away in the wholeness of the piece. While all this was happening, the museum was a dull buzz, people moving up and down the staircase, the side crowds surging and swelling and ebbing. I’m a sucker for an out of place gig, but while all the commotion could have easily driven someone crazy (as it did the man seated in front of me, who brushed away friends who leaned in to say hello throughout the evening), the movement here seemed perfect, a sort of manifestation of the public-ness of the place, the piece, the performance.

After quick bows, the group played a second, slightly shorter set, doing what they do best, slipping from one gesture towards a song to another with an organic pulse. They opened with a blues but made their way to Zero Gravity, a fun riff on El Pito (I’ll Never Go Back to Georgia) from Shorter with Perez laughing and backing him up immediately, a tease of Prometheus Unbound, and an obtuse glance at Footprints (which is the closest you’ll ever get to hearing this band play Shorter’s most famous song). About a half hour into the fifty-minute suite came the best single passage of the evening, a fantastically rich rhythm groove with the tenor awash in the mix. Perez shifted to a heavy, forceful line and Blade responded immediately, jumping at the idea, hopping off his seat and erupting across his kit. Shorter was now on soprano again, blowing sharp and clear, toying with the concept while Patitucci rumbled out thunder clusters and Blade simply exploded, before easing into a slick, easy stroll that frayed and melted once again into the evening air.