Deeply felt music
yofriend | 05/07/2003
(5 out of 5 stars)
"My copy is now 29 years old. The cover is almost faded, but the record inside is still in very good shape. That's because Odyssey Of Iska contains some very beautiful music. In fact, as far as I know, Blue Note Records have not found it necessary until today to re-release the album on CD yet. Pity. If you can find the record at a second hand shop, don't hesitate. The definite jam here is Depois Do Amor, O Vazio (After Love, Emptiness) - what a great title! The song is a veritable Bossa Nova, but its almost 12 minutes are Bossa Nova the way you've never heard it before. Two drummers (Billy Hart and Alphonze Mouzon) start the Bossa beat and off it goes. Supported by two double bass players (Ron Carter and Cecil McBee), percussion, Bossa guitar and vibraphone (the only keyboard, so to speak), Wayne Shorter starts the melody on his soprano sax. For me, his playing on this tune is the most beautiful of his entire career, and that's saying something. After his solo and the re-statement of the melody, the song drifts into a frenzy of percussion and bass, creating an atmosphere of the amazon jungle. After hundreds of times listening to this song, it still is a miracle. The rest of the LP is also intriguing. I especially love Calm. It's Free Jazz - but don't worry! the song is a ballad. It's free, but the musicians here are so carefully listening to each other that the song is full of harmony and peace.
Shame on Blue Note for not remastering and releasing this set!"
Just before Weather Report...
R G-S Listen with all your might! | Los Angeles CA USA | 06/07/2005
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Just as Wayne, Miroslav Vitous, and Joe Zawinul were about to become Weather Report (Alphonse Mouzon and Airto Moriera were the other founding members) each had a solo album hit the streets. Of the three ("Iska", Vitous' "infinite Search" and "Zawinul") the most remarkable was Vitous' debut, but it was truly a landmark of fusion.
"Iska" has never been as popular, and has been only sporadically available on vinyl and CD. The "spacey" first three cuts (the vinyl's first side) lose focus sometimes, but are interesting explorations of color and texture that characterized some of Miles' studio work at the time.
The closing "Joy" is another fusion landmark, though; the two-bass two-drummer rhythm section puts the hammer down, and part way through, Wayne switches from tenor back to soprano and tears several new windows in his listeners' heads.
BTW, Leonard Feather's original liner notes refered to the new supergroup-to-come as "Weather FORECAST"!.
RFGS"
Beauty!
Kevin D. Hurst | Edgemont, Pa | 11/02/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"A great chronicle of Wayne Shorter's love for humanity and condition. He did this to explain the journey of his daughter on the occasion of her birth. The forward he wrote himself is very deep and challenges what people think is love. The music he refers to as 'the enclosed' in his treatise. The playing is superb but he comments on the sharing the ones he choose offer. This is important music to any Wayne fan before Weather report and after Miles."
