Herbie34Hancock

When we go out on the V.S.O.P tour, generations who never saw us perform in the Sixties will get a chance to see what we look like playing together. It's like seeing if an actor can play more than one Shakespearian role." Wayne Shorter, May 1977.

Ever since 1970, the year Miles Davis dramatically broke new ground with Bitches Brew, music has been fermenting and evolving at a terrific pace. It's no wonder that jazz, the most universally adaptive of all the world's musics, has run headlong into myriad forms of rock, classical and ethnic music. And not surprisingly countless failures have stood in contrast with the few original, enlightening successes of bands includingHerbie Hancock's Headhunters, Josef Zawinul's and Wayne Snorter's phenomenally innovative Weather Report, Chick Corea's various incarnations of Return to Forever, the early pioneering of Tony Williams with John McLaughlin in the undersung Lifetime band, and, of course, the relentlessly daring escapades of the godfather himself, Miles Dewey Davis.

The fact that more than 100,000 people turned out in just one month to see the V.S.O.P Quintet shows not only that jazz remains as vital as any American art form, but that five musicians, by playing (with their individual bands) music so many purists claim is destroying jazz, have actually helped broaden the "pure jazz" audience.

The Quintet came together in order to play acoustic jazz that, rather than suffering from each man's having experimented with electronics, seems to have gained resonance and maturity Master musicians tend to remain masters, no matter what style of music they make, as long as the motivation and development come from within. To quote Ron Carter:

For some members of V.S.O.P, playing this music once again might require a few changes from a physical standpoint-Herbie's using only the acoustic piano, and Tony's playing the cymbals differently than with his own band but it's not a change from an emotional point of view. Just because some of the forms we're playing date back ten years doesn't mean they're not contemporary."

Rehearsing in Hollywood, the band reviewed chord changes and cues with shorthand rapidity, then played full-length "tests" that often seemed to cry out for preservation. During brief breaks they regaled one another with anecdotes from both past and present (Wayne, for instance, explained that with Miles he always played "Dolores" the same quirkily beautiful way that the reallife Dolores talked). Then Tony delivered a mini-lesson in drum history. Illustrating his axiom that "Max Roach could play faster and cleaner than anyone, while Art Blakey wasn't so quick, but he'd groove you to death" Tony sprang into action, playing three variations of an eye-popping, earsplitting Blakey drum-roll-into-the-cymbal climax, his Judgement Day momentum carrying him clear off his seat and onto the floor. Laughter all around.

Although the music here really speaks for itself, I can't resist mentioning a few specifics: the way Herbie molds his piano exactly to the requirements of each song and how he reaches out to each soloist with chords that are uncannily right (the duet with Ron Carter on "Jessica"); Wayne's sub-toned talking tenor intro to "Dolores," and his piercing soprano solo in duet with the dark colors of Freddie's flugelhorn on "Lawra"; Tony's solo on "Lawra," a textbook of ideas rich enough in implication to send a thousand drummers to the woodshed in perpetuity; Freddie's biting, typically brilliant trumpet attack as he shifts "Dolores" into high gear; andRon Carter's supple way of walking the bass, at once anchoring and propelling the ensemble as the frees Tony to roam through the music's side streets, to the city limits and back, in what amounts to a continual solo.

What the audience applauds on this album transcends mere form, technique and instrumentation. They were thrilled by the charisma generated by five masters who listened to one another's inner ears, spoke to each other at multiple levels, and, no matter how dense the musical content conveyed their messages to the audience with amazing clarity.

-Conrad Silvert