strange then that it doesn't seem to register with people like that.
I never realised this was his debut either....
Well, most of us had heard a lot of Wayne before hearing this album. I know I ceertainly had - years of the BNS, the Plugged Nickel stuff, etc. I first got KELLEY GREAT on a VeeJay CD about 5 or 6 years ago, and thought that Wayne was off into a little different zone, but just figured it was Wayne being Wayne, if you know what I mean. Wayne goes there.
Then I read in the Mosaic Morgan/Shorter book that this was his first date (no mention is made of the Eaton date), go back and check it out again, and WHOA! Realizing that this was his "debut" throws the "wierdness" into an entirely new light.
It's difficult, if not impossible, to truly hear things now as they sounded then, especially if it's the work of somebody you're been as totally innundated with as I have been with Shorter. But a little "imagination", and familiarity with the "surrounding landscape" of the times can work wonders, up to a point. I don't know what kind of play this album got back in the day, but it was certainly out of my radar's range until less than 10 years ago (and not all VeeJays were, fwiw, not by any stretch of the imagination). I suspect that my unawareness of this album, and its status as Wayne's debut is not unusual.
Totally audacious, I say!