Joe

It's not nitpicky when you're correct! Thanks for untangling that.

As the tune's title says, a dilemma!

While it's far from a great record, something about this June 1962 session -- first issued as LP #1 of the HIPGNOSIS set, then on its own in Japan, then as a bonus session tacked onto the domestic reissue of VERTIGO -- has always stuck with me. The vibe of it is rather 50s Jackie, but, of course, here he's still working out the consequences of his decisions to go more outside on LET FREEDOM RING (March 1962, but not released until almost a year later). The re's something comfortable about the music; I'll credit the presence of the Clark-Warren-Higgins rhythm section. But there's also a tension, too. IMO, some of that tension is a byproduct of KD's own tightrope walk between bop orthodoxy and the more expressionistic approach he started exploring as early as the 2 HORNS / 2 RHYTHM date with Ernie Henry. Maybe his chops were starting to go, as many have observed, but I'd like to think most of the hallmarks of his early 60s approach were the result of a deliberate choice on his part to further explore the possibilities of both his instrument -- a la Don Cherry -- and a more purely melodic and rhythmic approach to solo construction. Case in point: the variations he spins on the Warren-composed head throughout his solo here. In some ways, his entire solo is simply a recapitulation of that initial statement, with subtle alterations of timbre, inflection, cadence and register. I would never claim this as KD's "Impressions", but there's something about his working over of motifs here that recalls Trane and Rollins. And I love that moment at just after the 3-minute mark where the shape of the descending phrase he plays recalls -- for me anyway -- someone sadly shaking their head at the what can't or won't be resolved. Anyway, it's a solo I find fascinating from a "generative constraint" point of view.

It doesn't get more hip than this:

Thanks so much for sharing this article. Some new info here for me.

Very interested!

An interesting experiment that might veer to close to "classical composition" for some, but there are some fine improvisers (and improvisations) to be heard on this record.

The string section on this record is small but mighty.

Mentioned previously but worth mentioning again: (WAY WAY OUT)

To the best of my knowledge, the CD issue (which I have) corrects the skip.

Also interesting to note: GM III's SOME OTHER STUFF was recorded in July of 1964, 3 months after NIGHT DREAMER and a month before JUJU.

Yeah. Just spun this one again. It's surprisingly "cool" in some respects. I'm with you that Trane is often over-stated as an influence on Shorter's work. But I guess he kind of invited those comparisons with a record like JUJU... Am I crazy or did Stan Getz at one time call Wayne one of his favorite tenor players? There are certainly times when I can feel a Getz influence swooping through Wayne's phrasing and coloring.

To the surprise of exactly no one, this article does not delve into Wayne's most adventurous BN work: THE ALL-SEEING EYE (a record that I still haven't warmed up to entirely), THE SOOTHSAYER (as an arranger) and ETC. Then again/to be fair, anything beyond 1964 is not the article's premise. But while we are on the subject of Wayne, however... ETC. in particular has always felt to me like the record where Wayne most fully "processes" Coltrane's influence and sets himself up for something different. But, to Jim's point: absolutely, some of Wayne's intense, emotionally gripping playing, period, is on SUPERNOVA. Case in point: God bless Wayne Shorter, all of him.

Charles Brackeen!

No endorsement of the author's positions intended here*, just posting this for anyone interested in reading "critical opinions" about this release (and Trane in general). https://www.weeklystandard.com/dominic-green/john-coltrane-and-the-end-of-jazz * "The story goes that Coltrane was using LSD after 1965. If so, then the overreach and incoherence of his final music, and his mingling with admiring but inferior talents like Alice Coltrane, the Yoko Ono of jazz, suggest that Coltrane might be the sixties’ first and foremost acid casualty, flailing out rather than flaming out, the peak of his late style already behind him." WTF/GTFO

I try to keep it diverse! The Tom Johnson is a new discovery.