When Wayne Shorter first emerged in the late 1950s, he was originally thought of as a John Coltrane-influenced tenor-saxophonist. It quickly became apparent that, though Shorter shared some influences with 'Trane, he was a true original. His solos and compositions were so personal and unique that it became impossible to trace them back to any historical predecessors. His music defied any classification, falling into an undisclosed location between hard bop and the avant garde; connected to jazz but existing in its own musical world.

Adam's Apple (1966) features Shorter at the top of his game. The album introduces the saxophonist's best known composition, "Footprints," an abstract tribute to John Coltrane, "Chief Crazy Horse" and a haunting ballad, "Teru." With Wayne Shorter cementing a musical friendship/partnership with Herbie Hancock that continues to this day, he creates a masterpiece that ranks among a handful of superb albums from the mid-1960s.

This pressing is on SRX Vinyl. SRX stands for “Silent Running Xperience.” SRX is our own proprietary formula, conceived and developed by Rick Hashimoto of Record Technology and manufactured by TPC Plastics. Its noise floor is fathoms lower than any other vinyl we know of out there past or present. Records pressed with it look like normal black discs until you hold them up to the light and see that they are translucent and smoky, silvery gray in color. The near-perfect silence of SRX Vinyl virtually frees the music from groove noise and draws you further into the listening space, setting it in relief so distinct, full and spacious it’s nearly sculptural. You hear more of what’s on the original tapes, not only of the notes played on the instruments but the experience of the event itself. That's why we call it Silent Running Xperience.

Like all Music Matters Jazz releases, this is cut from the original analog tapes, mastered by Ron Rambach and Kevin Gray at Cohearant Audio, and pressed at Record Technologies Inc (RTI). The gorgeous gatefold jacket is from Stoughton Printing in City of Industry, California and includes exclusively licensed photos from the original session inside.

See more Wayne Shorter records here.