This is a young person’s record – a person with strong ear drums and little sensitivity to walls of sound. Shorter blows hard all the time with little let-up, and he is a matched, or overmatched rather, by drummer Elvin Jones. I don’t know if it is a recording fault, but Jones drowns out most of the excellent work of McCoy Tyner, and even submerges his leader at times.
All the themes are by Shorter and if I found the final number the best of them all, it is because perhaps it is the easiest to follow – a simple, swinging twelve-bar blues, where everybody sounds relaxed and blows accordingly. The repetitious theme for Mahjong has an almost mesmeric quality about it, but it is an intriguing melodic titbit and contains some fine piano from Tyner. Another good track is Deluge, where the balance of instruments is much better, and Tyner gets a chance to show what a fine pianist he is. Yes Or No is very groovy, but Shorter’s gravel-hard tone becomes wearying before the end of the track. Not a record I would turn to very often, but a good example of the hard-driving school of this modern era.
Discography
Juju; Deluge; House Of Jade (18 min) – Mahjong; Yes Or No; Twelve More Bars To Go (17 min)
Wayne Shorter (ten); McCoy Tyner (p); Reginald Workman (bs); Elvin Jones (d).
(Blue Note 4182 12inLP 45s. 3d.)
