By this point Shorter is the master of the enigmatic sound. Everything seems to have a mysterious quality.
The standard "Tom Thumb" with its catchy line is one of the best in Wayne's discography. Schizophrenia sounds like an extension of the Davis second great quintet to my ears.
The music is exploratory, though never loses the symbiotic relationship with the mother ship of jazz.
With Herbie Hancock on piano, and Ron Carter on Bass you know you're going to get a dose of the Davis mid-60's band sound, minus Miles of course.
The horns on the album, beside the leader Shorter's are: James Spauding on alto, as well as flute, and the great Curtis Fuller on trombone. Did Fuller ever fail to offer solid work on an album, I can't think of anything bad as sideman or leader?
Spaldings "Kryptonite" , the only tune not composed by shorter on the album is a nice flute show piece until Shorter does some muscular runs of his own. Carter does some strutting around too, similar to the Plugged Nickle concerts he did with Davis. Carter had a stretchy bass style, he could fly all over the board.
Drummer Joe Chambers, who's a pretty darned good composer in his own right just sticks to drums, but he plays in a very similar style as Tony Williams.
The thing that strikes me about Schizophrenia is how aptly titled the album is, it does very much straddle the dividing line of free jazz and bop. 1967 was the year of release here, and the music is being stretched to such lengths, you begin to wonder where else can they go?
Shorter and Davis were at this time also releasing albums like Miles Smiles and Nefertiti to the masses. Hancock was releasing Maiden Voyage, "earlier", with The Prisoner about the same time.
Eventually, within 3 years Shorter was off to co-found Weather Report with Joe Zawinul, and Herbie Hancock was on his way to forming his Mwandishi band delivering great jazz funk fusion like Crossings for Warner Bros. and Sextant for Columbia.
Shorter actually rode with Miles up to March of 1970, all the way through Bitches Brew. 1971's Live in Tokyo from Weather Report has a feel that reminds me of Schizophrenia some, all be it with electric piano, and a more improvised and less structured approach.
It is interesting putting music into the historical context of what came before and what came after, and of course what was being played by that particular artist, and what his contemporaries were playing at the time.
Obviously you have to spend a lot of time reading about and listening to this music to go that far down the rabbit hole with it. But, when you do, you are able to hear new things with each listen, and it is a very rewarding experience for me, perhaps you too?
This allows a fan to perhaps experience some of that development the artist has made throughout his career.
We music listeners, especially with a genre as demanding as modern jazz might also experience the developing of our listening tastes for diverse sounds, much like the artist develops his playing style from his own influences.
"Miyako"is a ballad that is a real revelation "see below". Funny how much the Lester Young influence comes out on this, not until this very day did I realize how much Shorter's enigmatic tone sounded like young.
I am going to have to listen to some more Lester Young tonight to see if I am right. Shorter really reminds me of him on the ballad, pretty straight ahead. Hancock does a nice job staying tasteful as always behind Wayne.
The final track "Playground" gets off to a pretty atonal start, more Carter fast walking and Chambers' is riding the cymbal. Shorter blasts off into outer space, then falls back to earth like a spent bottle rocket. Fuller offers his best go on the trombone and does a nice job too. An instrument that can be cumbersome seems effortless to the pro Fuller.
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