SPEAK NO EVIL

An upbeat post-bop album with Shorter backed by a fine range of sidemen, including Herbie Hancock. The sessions for this album took place on Christmas Eve, 1964, which seems to have put the participants in a positive and happy mood, because the album is decidedly uplifting in flavour. The combination of the album title and the cover shot of Wayne and his first wife Teruko Nakagami - the duo having split up prior to the album sessions - suggests some sort of resentful hidden message here, but thankfully that doesn't come out in the playing and perhaps when Wayne called it "Speak No Evil" he meant it, celebrating the happy memories rather than lingering on the bad.