Leonard Feather Blindfold Tests

[Plays "Emerald Isle" by The Generation Band, from Soft Shoulder, Palo Alto Records (1983). Personnel: Ernie Watts, soprano saxophone, piccolo; Victor Feldman, vibes, piano; Trevor Feldman, drums; Nathan East, bass; Dan Sawyer, guitar.]

Wayne Shorter: Okay, do you want me to comment on that?

Leonard Feather: Sure.

Wayne Shorter: Do you have a tape recorder on?

Leonard Feather: Yeah, it's on.

Wayne Shorter: The opening made me think of... It's an odd rhythm. I think it was in five or something like that, and then it ended in six, and it had a little seven, or put another five in it, but it made me think of Gary Burton, what he might be doing now. I don't know if this was recorded right now, in the '80s, and I had a feeling maybe it's because it was recorded around '79 or '80. And I think of Gary Burton because of the vibraphone solo, because when I first heard his entrance, it was him, it was he, that approach. I've only seen Gary live once, really, at the Village Gate. He was playing upstairs at the Gate, the top of the Gate.

Leonard Feather: Oh. Did you recognize it was soprano?

Wayne Shorter: Now, the soprano, it's hard to recognize that when... I just wonder if it was the guy who plays with Miles.

Leonard Feather: Bill Evans?

Wayne Shorter: Bill Evans. I wonder if it was him, but I'm not sure. The whole piece in general sounds like it's in Gary Burton kind of groove.

Leonard Feather: Did you think it was creative or interesting, or not?

Wayne Shorter: I think it was mainly clinically dominated, in a sense, but well put together as a piece of jazz representative music that comes out in today's time, where it's not long and drawn out. That's one thing I like about it. It wasn't long and drawn out. Anything, doesn't have to be jazz, anything that's really long and drawn out and repetitive or is redundant, especially when it comes to taking solos or improvised solos. You have two bookends. You can have a solo in the middle for miles and miles, and then you have two bookends at the head, then you play the head, you move on again. That's just about gone, I think. So the main thing I liked about it was it was to the point, regardless of whatever the clinical ingredient that was in it. What I liked about it, it was happy. So I'm going to dig underneath things that people used to stop at years ago. They stop at, "Well, it's too clinical for me, so I can't..." Or it's too academic or something, or bookish or planned or something like that. So tearing away all those things that the other people used in the '60s and '70s, I mean, people who did this kind of interview or a blindfold test.

Leonard Feather: That doesn't bother you, right?

Wayne Shorter: No, because I have to tear away the... I have to look underneath now and see what it gives off. It exudes happiness and something like that, that's the main thing.

Leonard Feather: How would you rate it?

Wayne Shorter: For an up feeling, for a positive something, I'd say two and a half.

Leonard Feather: Okay, good. That was Ernie Watts on...

[Plays "Wapango" by Paquito D'Rivera, from Mariel, Columbia Records (1982). Personnel: Paquito D'Rivera, composer, saxophones; Hilton Ruiz, piano.]

Wayne Shorter: Yeah, okay. Oh man, that's it. So many people in there.

Unknown Speaker: Good afternoon, Leonard Feather's office.

Wayne Shorter: I heard the little bit of like the kind of way that McCoy Tyner used to play the piano, a little bit. But whoever's playing the piano on that piece, there was a certain kind of right-hand bracket things that he or she was doing that McCoy wouldn't do, and I thought of Toshiko. The last time I saw her playing at the Gate, she was playing solo piano at the Gate. And she uses the pedal a lot on acoustic piano, and the left hand, like she's playing behind John Coltrane a little bit. And when I heard the sax opening, the saxes, I was thinking about Supersax. I think Supersax would play more strongly and have a more bebop-oriented phrasing, even though it's the Spanish kind of feeling, the opening. So I think these musicians were more classically oriented in the opening. I don't know who they were, actually. I think maybe Tom Scott might know a lot of people who could fit in, make something like that, a record like that. So I don't want to put it in any musical category, like this is strictly jazz or this and that. But it's kind of a Mulligan stew.

Leonard Feather: Yeah, right, it was. How would you rate it?

Wayne Shorter: I'd say it's just like a stew to me, kind of interesting to taste, but I wouldn't have my whole meal with that kind of stew. I give it one star.

[Plays unknown song].

Wayne Shorter: In this one I hear two distinct saxophone styles. One seems more West Coast oriented and the other one seems more East Coast oriented. The East Coast oriented sounds like it could come from kind of Dexter Gordon-ish something, and the West Coast has a more Al Cohen approach. And even in the trombones, at first I was thinking about Bob Brookmeyer. I was thinking about that, and I was trying to listen for the valve trombone feeling in it, in a sense, whoever was taking the trombone solo, especially when it's coming in to moving around in the faster notes. Well, it sounds like something that's from back there around in the '50s, early '50s. Philly Joe Jones once played a song or wrote something that sounded something like that, but had more breaks in it, drum breaks. Because he and I, we had a gig together at Birdland on one Monday night, Philly Joe Jones and myself and Kenny Dorham.

Leonard Feather: Really?

Wayne Shorter: Yeah. It was Philly Joe's, he called me and asked if I wanted to do it. And he played a song something like that. So I think the swing part of it, the rhythm section part, whoever was playing that rhythm section could have been more strong, more upfront. And it seems like the horns were all pulling the rhythm. And I have a feeling that it was a date that was put together off the cuff. I don't say you have to have a lot of rehearsals or anything, but not... So with that thought in mind, I've never been in a spot myself where I could have any reason for throwing a record date together, a record session together, or a song on the record session, one song, just throw it together. It seems like it's pretty much thrown together. And for some of the some of the fingerings, saxophone fingerings that I heard in the solo part, I'd give them one star.

Leonard Feather: Okay. We've got to get some...

[Plays "Mighty Lights" by Jane Ira Bloom, from Mighty Lights, Enja Records (1982). Personnel: Jane Ira Bloom, soprano saxophone; Ed Blackwell, drums.]

Wayne Shorter: Well, at first when I heard the opening, the entrance of the soprano sax, I was thinking about Steve Lacy, but he plays with more gusto. After the signature of the song, I felt that first part, the signature of the song, when he went into the, it's called scripted part, in the improvisation, I think Steve Lacy would have been more on target, even without chord changes. Whoever was playing the soprano, I think likes Steve Lacy.

Leonard Feather: Yeah.

Wayne Shorter: But everybody in that group, they were all playing on the beat, more or less. And as Miles would say, it's nice when you can play across the beat and across the bar lines. It sounds, to me, as if they were exploring, trying to explore something that has been explored already, and going outside, so to speak. They used the word in the '60s about going outside. I don't think it was a good job. I mean, I have to be candid, I think that'll help, but I think that it wasn't a good job. If they're trying to go outside, it wasn't on target.

Leonard Feather: Let's add for the record that during the drum solo you asked me to skip forward, right?

Wayne Shorter: Yeah.

Leonard Feather: You were getting bored.

Wayne Shorter: Yeah. I mean I heard some rudiments. It was like in the beginning of taking drum lessons. I know some people, musicians who play well, try to do a piece of music as if they don't know how to play their instrument. If they make believe you don't know how to play the instrument, maybe we'll get to something, get the essence of something. Miles used to say that sometimes, "You make believe you can't play."

Leonard Feather: Really?

Wayne Shorter: Yeah. He said he was doing that sometimes, make believe he couldn't play the trumpet. Because it was hard to do, but I heard him do some things and it sounded like a lot of real love was going through it, not professionalism, but the amateur thing, the first time I discovered that amateur means someone who loves something.

Leonard Feather: That's right.

Wayne Shorter: For the love of it, not for the money. And I heard that happen with that Miles Davis group a lot, a lot of the guys. Herbie Hancock would put his hands down and not play for a while. You remember that time when he didn't know what to play, but then when he did play something, he was like a little kid, and the audience, they really communicated. So all of his classical training went out the window and something else, the real thing...If they were trying to do that, still it didn't happen.

Leonard Feather: Yeah, it sounds like there's no stars.

Wayne Shorter: Yeah, this one no stars, because it sounds like it's for you too.

Leonard Feather: I'll tell you later who it was. Now, let's see, I lost my place. Oh, here it is.

[Plays "Riverbed" by Joe Zawinul, from Money In The Pocket, Atlantic Records (1966). Personnel: Joe Zawinul, piano, composer; Pepper Adams, baritone saxophone; Joe Henderson, tenor saxophone; Louis Hayes, drums.]

Wayne Shorter: [During the song] Yeah, they're going to go out now.

[Song ends]:

Wayne Shorter: That sounded... That's a baritone player from New York. He used to play with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis band. I can't think of his name. Jay Cameron? What's his name?

Leonard Feather: I don't know. You're probably thinking of Pepper Adams?

Wayne Shorter: Pepper Adams, yeah. Who is Jay Cameron? His name came to my head. Did he play baritone?

Leonard Feather: He might have played with them too, I don't know.

Wayne Shorter: Yeah, Pepper Adams, that reminds me of Pepper Adams, whoever was playing that baritone sax.

Wayne Shorter: And the pianist reminds me of Horace Silver. The right hand has that... And the left hand has a Monk influence in the chords, in the weight of the chords and the choice of notes. And it sounds like the way Horace used to write. At a certain time, he used to write something like that. It sounds like it's heavily Horace Silver influenced. The alto sax, whoever was playing the alto sax reminded me of Jerry Dodgion. Remember Jerry Dodgion? So I might be off, but those are the immediate things that I got. Because Horace liked the steadiness. The drummer had that kind of steady. And I think the steadiness kind of thing that Horace had at one time was when he had Louis Hayes playing the drums. And then after that, all the other drummers who followed, he insisted that they keep some of that, whatever that Louis Hayes had in there. I felt some of that steady thing from the drummer in there. I think I give it two stars.

Leonard Feather: Sounds fair.

Wayne Shorter: Yeah, two stars. The baritone player was really connecting up with the changes nice.

[Plays unknown song.]

Wayne Shorter: Especially that tenor sound was like some of the other guys, coming along doing the same kind of sound. To me, it sounded like Gato, even though when I heard them on sound tracks, the last time in Paris, they had everything kind of souped up with echo and reverb and all that, and it sounded like he was all over the screen. But for recording, if that's him, probably gave it a little more microcosmic of what he does on the screen. To me, this is like the same kind of mini build-up of Ravel's Boléro, any kind of build-up, because with Latin, Boléro, not Boléro but that kind of thing. And it sounds like Gato Barbieri, and like repetition going on, a repetitious something that keeps building and building. For that effect, which is many more different ways to do that now and try and be a bit more interesting, for achieving what they achieved that way, which is very kind of mundane New Yorker way of doing it, I think one and a half stars. And if they were trying to conjure up some excitement with the embellishments that were going around it sax-wise, the use of the saxophone, I think it would have been another choice of instrument to use, another attitude or something like that.

Leonard Feather: Yeah. Do you think the repetition at the beginning was too repetitious?

Wayne Shorter: Yeah, it was too much in the beginning, too much of the same exact repetition.

Leonard Feather: Same fingering, yeah. I was wondering when they were going to stop.

Wayne Shorter: Yeah.

Leonard Feather: Well, my goodness, we haven't had more than two stars. I'm sorry to disappoint you.

Wayne Shorter: No, no, no.

Leonard Feather: I didn't do it deliberately. I had no idea how the ratings would come out. I thought you would like some of them more than you did. Let me ask you a question, what, if I had played it, what would you have given five stars, at any time in history?

Wayne Shorter: Let's see, from America here...

Leonard Feather: From anywhere.

Wayne Shorter: Oh, from anywhere. Let's see, providing that you've heard it. Let's see.

Leonard Feather: There must be some things in your collection that you...

Wayne Shorter: Oh, I can only go back to my collection?

Leonard Feather: Any record you've ever heard in your life.

Wayne Shorter: Yeah.

Leonard Feather: That you really think is worth five stars.

Wayne Shorter: You know what's five stars? It's a thing that they put out on Miles about the different groups that have gone through, Miles has...

Leonard Feather: The Prestige Records?

Wayne Shorter: I think that's it.

Leonard Feather: The 12 albums?

Wayne Shorter: No, it's not 12, they only gave me one album. In Paris they gave me one. They have it on cassette too. It's with Blue Christmas on it, Devil May Care.

Leonard Feather: Oh yeah.

Wayne Shorter: Then the other one, the song that Jackie McLean wrote. And then there's Coltrane on one thing with Miles and all that. But then, it's really a mixing. That's a nice five-star thing. I just have it at home. And I was listening to it, I didn't look at it, I turned it on and I said, "Hey, that was Jackie McLean playing real good," with Miles, of course. I think Dave is on one.

Leonard Feather: Oh, really? I'll have to check it out.

Wayne Shorter: Not just the saxophone arena. I am not just going to saxophones, but then there were other things like piano, like Victor Feldman and then somebody else. I think it's out here, in the USA.

Leonard Feather: Where did you hear them?

Wayne Shorter: I was at CBS in Paris, and they laid it on us and gave us the-

Leonard Feather: I think that's a different collection, because I don't think those particular things you listed are all together on one album here. Like Blue Christmas I don't think is available at all. I know that's the one Bob Dorough sang.

Wayne Shorter: Yeah, mm-hmm.

Leonard Feather: It's interesting, actually. Wouldn't there be anything of Miles from the period when you were with him?

Wayne Shorter: What was that question again?

Leonard Feather: I mean, anything from Miles of the '60s, when you were in the group, you wouldn't consider any of those five stars?

Wayne Shorter: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, some of those things. I was trying to stay away from that. I was thinking about things that I haven't been involved with, playing-wise, at all. Five stars, I give the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band things five stars.

Leonard Feather: The early big band-

Wayne Shorter: Yeah, those early big band things. I think they're listening to that stuff in schools now, and in colleges and everything.

Leonard Feather: Oh yeah, yeah.

Wayne Shorter: They're listening to it, but what I hear coming out is… It seems like what they're doing is that they're listening to this stuff and they're applying to making what they're doing today, doing the best kind of things, whatever, new wave or whatever it is. I hear some, a smitter and a smatter of good work, and some kind of new wave stuff seems like they have studied Dizzy Gillespie's Big Band and Stan Kenton, the whole thing, the how you approach a break, how you approach a blare, a trumpet blare, those brackets and an expressive statement. And it's coming through.

Leonard Feather: Well, let me turn this off, and I'll put on another tape for the interview. I'll take this one upstairs.