On his third date for Blue Notewithin a year,Wayne Shorterchanged the bands that played on bothNight DreamerandJujuand came up with not only another winner but also managed to give critics and jazz fans a different look at him as a saxophonist. Because of his previous associations withMcCoy Tyner,Elvin Jones, andReggie Workmanon those recordings, Shorter had been unfairly branded with the just-another-Coltrane-disciple tag, despite his highly original and unusual compositions. Here, with only Jones remaining and his bandmates from theMiles Davis Quintet,Herbie HancockandRon Carteron board (withFreddie Hubbardfilling out the horn section), Shorter at last came into his own and caused a major reappraisal of his earlier work. The odd harmonic frameworks used to erectFee-Fi-Fo-Fum, with its balladic structure augmented with a bluesy regimen of hard bop and open-toned modalism, create the illusion of a much larger band managing all that timbral space. Likewise, on the title track, with its post-bop-oriented melodic line strewn across a wide chromatic palette of minors and Hancocks piano pushing through a contrapuntal set of semi-quavers, the avant-garde meets the hard bop of the 50s head-on and everybody wins. The loping lyric of the horns and Hancocks vamping in the middle section during Shorters solo reveals a broad sense of humor in the saxophonists linguistics and a deep, more regimented sense of time and thematic coloration. The set ends with the beautifulWild Flower, a lilting ballad with angular accents by Hancock who takes the lyric and inverts it, finding a chromatic counterpoint that segues into the front line instead of playing in opposition. The swing is gentle but pronounced and full of Shorters singular lyricism as a saxophonist as well as a composer Tracklist: 1. Witch Hunt2. Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum3. Dance Cadaverous4. Speak No Evil5. Infant Eyes6. Wild Flower