Wayne Shorter had already set a high bar over the course of his first several Blue Note albums, which included all-time jazz classics including Night Dreamer, JuJu, and Speak No Evil, but 1966’s Adam’s Apple featuring Herbie Hancock on piano, Reggie Workman on bass, and Joe Chambers on drums immediately joined the ranks of the saxophonist’s greatest recordings and remains a pinnacle artistic statement of Blue Note’s fertile post-bop era. Shorter composed 5 of the session’s 6 tracks including the grooving title track, which surely had producer Alfred Lion dancing around Rudy Van Gelder’s studio. Other highlights of this sublime set include Jimmy Rowles’ arresting “502 Blues (Drinkin’ And Drivin’),” Shorter’s bossa-inflected “El Gaucho,” the tender ballad “Teru,” and the first recording of his timeless composition “Footprints,” which Shorter would record again later that year with the Miles Davis Quintet for the album Miles Smiles. The album closes with the evocative composition “Chief Crazy Horse” featuring Shorter’s trademark harmonic twists and a churning solo spotlight by Chambers.
