Wayne Shorter
Tenor Sax Solo on
Twelve More Bars to Go

About

Wayne Shorter's tenor saxophone solo is the sole improvisation on this recording, and at eight choruses it is one of the most extended on the JuJu album. Taking eight choruses of the 12-bar blues in B-flat at 113 BPM, Shorter delivers a masterful demonstration of sustained invention within jazz's most fundamental form. The tune's wry title suggests endlessness, and Shorter's solo honors that spirit, his eight choruses building and receding in waves of intensity while maintaining the searching, elliptical approach that distinguished his blues playing from that of more conventional tenor saxophonists.

Wayne Shorter was 30 to 31 years old at the time.