"Adam's Apple" finds tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter returning to a quartet setting after the avant-garde, multi-horn experiments of "The All-Seeing Eye" (see my review). Recorded during two sessions in February 1966, the album features Wayne with the rhythm trio of Herbie Hancock on piano, Reggie Workman on bass and Joe Chambers on drums. These players all knew each other well as Wayne and Herbie had been members of the Miles Davis Quintet for more than a year, not to mention their prior Blue Note collaborations. Furthermore, Wayne and Reggie had both been in the Jazz Messengers in the early 60s, and Wayne had partnered with Joe Chambers on his previous two Blue Note sessions. All this added up to a great deal of musical rapport and chemistry that translated directly to the tunes. Of Wayne's three quartet albums for Blue Note, this is arguably the best. As great as "JuJu" and "Etc" are, they have their flaws -- "JuJu" comes off sounding a little too Coltrane-like (it's hard not to when you play with both McCoy and Elvin) while "Etc" was often uneven (it did sit in the vaults for years). With "Adam's Apple," Wayne had reached the pinnacle of his style and expression in modal jazz, and shortly he would go searching for new frontiers both with Miles and on his own. But at this stage in his career he simply gets an A+ for "Adam's Apple."
Adam's Apple
Rapidshare / Hotfile @ 320K
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