Speak No Evil was one of several albums Shorter recorded for Blue Note in 1964, his first year as a member of Miles Davis's mid-1960s quintet. The album is generally regarded as one of Shorter's finest, and also a highlight of the Blue Note catalogue. The Penguin Guide to Jazz selected this album as part of its suggested "Core Collection" calling it "by far Shorter's most satisfying record".[5]Murray Horwitz stated in 2001 that "Speak No Evil is sort of a consolidation of Wayne Shorter's compositional excellence. It's so thorough and consistent and wide-ranging. It's almost a manifesto for his ideas. Those ideas were new 40 years ago, but they're still fresh today."[6]Rough Guide author Ian Carr wrote it is "a classic album in terms of both composition and improvisation, and has been inspirational for many musicians".[7]New York Times critic Ben Ratliff included the album in his publication Jazz: A Critic's Guide to the 100 Most Important Recordings stating that it offers "the first taste of a gnomic compositional style that would haunt jazz forevermore. [...] Just about everybody playing jazz born in the 1950s and after accepts it as a foundation."[8]
Releases
Speak No Evil was initially released on LP in 1966, as BLP 4194 and BST 84194. The first CD release was in 1987. A 1999 CD version, supervised by Rudy Van Gelder, included an alternate take of "Dance Cadaverous". A remastered limited edition was issued in Japan on SHM-CD in 2013, including two previously unissued alternate takes.
In 2015, the original master tapes were remastered and cut in the all-analog domain by Kevin Gray for Music Matters Ltd as part of their Blue Note: The Definitive Vinyl Reissue Series.
In January 2020, a new vinyl version remastered by Kevin Gray from the original analog master tapes was released by Blue Note as part of their Classic Vinyl Reissue Series.
