Wayne Shorter: Native Dancer

Here's one that they don't particularly like in my monumental Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, LP & Cassette. Two measly stars they give it. But then they're not that keen on Weather Report either, partly because Wayne Shorter didn't play enough sax with them. I was slightly disappointed myself when I saw Shorter playing with an electric quartet at the North Sea Jazz Festival back in the late '80s, but it wasn't long before he was appearing again in the acoustic settings of what one might uncharitably call his 'dotage'.

The thing about Mr. Weird, as he was dubbed, was that he was never afraid to experiment. Like Herbie Hancock in that respect, who also broke purists' hearts when he went all Future Shock. But I suppose the greatest and most influential jazz musicians, like Duke Ellington and Miles Davis, were not only not afraid to experiment, but also felt that it was their appointed duty to do so.

And what lovelier music with which to experiment than Brazilian? Richard Cook and Brian Morton, the compilers of the mighty reference tome, found 1974's Native Dancer 'a bland samba setting which does more to highlight Nascimento's vague and uncommitted vocal delivery than the leader's saxophone playing'. I have to stamp my feet and take issue with that on several counts: Milton Nascimento is one of Brazil's most original talents, with an extraordinary ethereal falsetto, and if he sings wordlessly at times, it is far from vague or uncommitted; the music that he and Shorter concocted (roughly sharing the writing credits, with one track by Herbie Hancock, who features on piano) has little to do with samba, nor bossa nova for that matter; and the leader's saxophone – both tenor and soprano – is integral to the successful fusion of genres. So there, Messrs. Cook and Morton!

The gorgeous Nascimento staple, 'Ponta de Areia', is I guess a case in point, with Nascimento's wordless vocal giving way to Shorter's soprano that slows things right down in a delicate mid-section before the group comes back to lead us out. 'Beauty And The Beast' is a stop-go Shorter composition in which the Brazilian sits out. Shorter's soprano sax soars high above an earthy theme prodded by Hancock's funky piano refrain. Nascimento returns to sing 'Tarde' in the more traditional vocal vein of someone like Caetano Veloso, before ceding to a beautiful Shorter tenor solo that's just long enough to satisfy any purist. Neither Nascimento's singing nor Shorter's tenor and soprano playing are in any way uncommitted in the dramatic 'Miracle of The Fishes', which ends the first side in rousing fashion.

Shorter's 'Diana' opens Side 2, a brief vehicle for his soprano sax and Herbie Hancock's elegant piano. It ushers in 'From The Lonely Afternoons', possibly the most seamless combination of wordless falsetto and (tenor) sax on the album. Shorter switches back to soprano sax for 'Ana Maria' to slow down the pace, before Nascimento comes back into the mix for a simmering 'Lilia' propelled by Roberto Silva's superb drumming, Airto Moreira's percussive armoury and the insistent organ of the splendidly-named Wagner Tiso. Hancock's 'Joanna's Theme' wraps up the proceedings with a typically Herbacious piece that offers Shorter space to illustrate that 'less is more'.

I brought this one back from New York many moons ago, along with Miles Davis' In A Silent Way. I must have been fusion-mad at the time. Native Dancer is arguably Shorter's most successful attempt to fuse jazz with any other kind of genre, be it funk or, as in this case, Brazilian music – or a bit of both, as on Weather Report's Tale Spinnin' the following year. He had been an established star since his tenure with Art Blakey, but the album opened the ears of the world outside of Brazil to the extraordinary voice of Milton Nascimento. Search as hard as I might, I have still not found a more satisfying showcase for his talents than this lovely lyrical precursor of what we now call 'world jazz'.