More powerful than jug Cabernet
In August 2009, I attended a performance at Jardine’s in Kansas City of the Doug Talley quintet playing the Wayne Shorter songbook. Talley, a tenor saxophonist from that city, said he’d gladly take requests, but they would be pointless, as the band intended to play just about everything Wayne ever wrote before the evening was done. The insistent delivery of one gem after another — "Yes Or No" on top of "Witch Hunt" after "Speak No Evil," "Majong," "El Gaucho," "Footprints," and beyond — knocked me loopier than the jug Cabernet I was drinking could possibly achieve. Fussy folks might dismiss Talley’s stewardship of Shorter’s music as mere "repertory" or "tribute" efforts, but it gave me a renewed appreciation for Shorter’s 60’s Blue Note period, which developed into an 18-month obsession, from which I am just emerging. I have seen in Google searches that Talley has reprised his Shorter undertaking at least twice since my revelatory experience, and maybe it’s for the best that I have missed them — I can actually listen to something else now!
Doug Talley on Facebook
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