Wayne Shorter: Odyssey of Iska LP (Blue Note Tone Poet Series)

Blue Note, 1971

The winds of change were blowing through Wayne Shorter’s life and career in 1970. The saxophonist had just left Miles Davis’ group and was soon to form his collective fusion band Weather Report. His music was evolving too as he began to delve into his own unique fusion explorations on his previous two Blue Note recordings Super Nova and Moto Grosso Feio. Recorded in August 1970, the mesmerizing Odyssey of Iska would be the last release of Shorter’s early Blue Note period. The album was a tribute to his daughter Iska—who had been born the year before with severe brain damage—with four immersive Shorter compositions portraying a variety of moods: “Wind,” “Storm,” “Calm,” and “Joy.”

The album’s centerpiece is an extended version of Bobby Thomas’ Brazilian influenced piece “De Pois do Amor, o Vazio” (After Love, Emptiness), foreshadowing Shorter’s growing interest in Brazilian music which he would explore further in the years to come. Shorter’s soprano and tenor saxophones are the lone horns heard on the album which featured Gene Bertoncini on guitar, David Friedman on vibraphone and marimba, Ron Carter and Cecil McBee on bass, and Alphonse Mouzon, Billy Hart, and Frank Cuomo contributing drums and percussion.