(4.5 stars) Arguably the Second Great Quintet's peak album
finulanu | Here, there, and everywhere | 11/30/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Opinionated as I generally am, I have a lot of trouble deciding what my favorite Second Quintet album is. It's between Miles Smiles and Nefertiti, that I know. From there, it's a tough call. The only thing I know for certain is this contains my favorite Wayne Shorter song: "Footprints". It's really hard to say what genre that one is. Ron and Tony make it sound Latin, but Hancock's playing almost sounds classical, and Miles and Wayne? Well, they're all over the place. And it is awesome. Then Miles and Wayne play beautiful solos, too, but what really makes it work is the rhythm section's genre-fusing. Speaking of the rhythm section, they're great throughout. If you ask me, "Orbits" and "Dolores" would be little more than very good but generic "modal-bebop" -they hadn't quite entered the "acoustic fusion" phase yet - if it weren't for the backing that Carter and especially Williams provide. Carter actually does do a bit of funky bass playing on "Dolores", sometimes playing off the beat and sometimes just sticking to pentatonic. But hey, cool bass line. I don't know if the little gap between Tony and Ron (which is so slight, it's barely noticeable) was intentional or not, but it adds a lot to the piece. I mean, your soloists are playing nicely, but it's the rhythm track I'm paying the most attention to here. "Orbits" is, as I said, good as well, but this time it's more for Miles, Wayne and Herbie's innovative, slightly disjointed solos. Anyhoo, the obligatory muted trumpet ballad ("Circle") is drop-dead gorgeous as usual. "Freedom Jazz Dance" isn't great, but I like it, again because of the slightly off-kilter rhythm section, and for Hancock (who kinda sits in the back)'s chord progression, though I gotta say bits of Shorter's solo are interesting. Nonetheless, the song does run a bit too long - but if you're listening just for the rhythm section, as I am, you may not notice. And despite the title, it's too slow to dance to. I get this feeling that the bass and drums are playing different time signatures, though, if that's worth anything. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. Not much happens in the last song, "Gingerbread Boy", other than a Mingus-inspired melody (it was written by Tony, who was a better drummer than songwriter). Forgetting about that one, this is one great album."
Track Listings (6) - Disc #1