Wayne Shorter is an American jazz composer and saxophonist, commonly regarded as an American jazz master. He played with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in the late 1950s, Miles Davis quintet in the 1960s and the jazz-rock fusion band Weather Report, which Shorter co-led in the 1970s. In 1964, Wayne joined the Miles Davis Quintet playing saxaphone with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams. Shorter composed extensively for  the Davis  group. Herbie Hancock described Wayne as "The master writer... Wayne was one of the few people who brought music to Miles that didn't get changed."

Shorters compositions have become  jazz standards. Shorter recorded several albums for Blue Note Records; the first was Night Dreamer recorded in 1964 with Lee Morgan, McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman and Elvin Jones. JuJu and Speak No Evil (1965) are two more well known recordings from this era.  Shorter's compositions on these albums are notable for their use of: pentatonic melodies with complex harmonies; long rests are an integral part of the music.

I choose Speak no Evil to arrange and record, starting with a big band score that included 5 saxophone and 8 brass parts. My arranging strategy is to simplify and open the mix. I reduced 17 tracks to 7 and reassigned parts to different  instruments. My apologies to Wayne. The sax parts disappeared. My flugelhorn replaced them. A bass, two pianos, a vibraphone, and a somewhat tamed drummer completed the band.