WAYNE SHORTER — Odyssey of Iska (review)

WAYNE SHORTER — Odyssey of Iska album cover Album · 1971 · Fusion Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Sean Trane
The present album can be seen as the missing Shorter link between Miles’ Bitches Brew and Wayne’s first album with Weather Report, and to be honest, it would heartily gain a spot next to or between those two. Produced by Duke Pearson (a Don Byrd acolyte), OOI is quite a departure on his previous solo works,

Opening on the Wind track, Wayne directly puts a hypnotizing imprint with his slow sax, while the two bassists (McBee and Carter) and three drummers (Mouzon mainly, Cuomo and Hart) and two percussionists (Friedman and again Cuomo) lay an amazing bed on which to expand on. Of course the improvs often veer slightly-dissonant, but it is nothing to be afraid of either. The following Storm track is in the cacophonic continuation of Wind, but Bertoncini’s guitar is much more present, but don’t expect to hear the complete mayhem that the title inaptly induces, unlike the following Calm track’s name is infinitely more accurate a description, but also the A-side’s most accessible track.

The flipside opens on the almost-12mins Brazilian bossa number De Pois Do Amor, which takes a few minutes to develop its charms, once Shorter’s superb sax parts takes us in its lovely meanders, helped by Friedman’s marimba playing. Emptiness is definitely not an accurate name for the second part of De Pois, even if three drummers and two bassists, but it ends in a no-tune’s land. The closing 9-mins Joy track opens erratically, but once the bass riff is settled (somewhat reminiscent of Trane’s ALS), it first hovers around, before diving head first in improvised vibes and sax solos and gradually speeds up

I might be wrong about this, but I have yet to see this album receiving the RVG remaster treatment yet, and really don’t see why it wouldn’t merit equal treatment with its more-standard (but less-inspired, IMHO) bigger brothers. Definitely worth the detour, if you ask me.
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