Masqualero

Wayne Shorter (tenor sax), Miles Davis (trumpet), Herbie Hancock (piano), Ron Carter (bass) and Tony Williams (drums). From the album Sorcerer (1967).

In 1956, Davis toured North America with his quintet, but they had ongoing discussions because Coltrane and Jones were heroin addicts and Davis wanted to lead a healthy life, although he still took cocaine. At the end of the tour he replaced them with Sonny Rollins and Art Taylor respectively.

In 1957, Davis teamed up again with arranger Gil Evans and recorded his second album for the Columbia label, Miles Ahead, where he played with a big band. They created a series of chiaroscuro themes linked to passages composed by Evans and Davis played the fliscorno floating above his impressionist harmonies. That same year he returned to Paris to record the soundtrack for the film Ascenseur pour l'échafaud, in which the group didn’t use sheet music, but recorded as they watched the film.

The rhythm section makes a brief introduction and then Shorter and Davis join in to expose a gloomy and unusual theme. The first one to play is Davis with a somber and taciturn solo that sometimes warms up and finally releases and opens without restrictions. Shorter follows him playing quietly, but soon uses suggestive and striking phrases with silences between them while Williams pushes him with the drums. Next comes Hancock, accompanied by Carter in an unbeatable way, with an extravagant melodic line that then softens to the point of contemplating each note and ends up playing chords. To finish, the group re-exposes the theme.