It’s something of a cliché that jazz is ‘different every time’, but in the case of this quartet, it was abundantly true. Having heard them live many times in their long life, even when Shorter’s familiar songs emerged, they tended to creep up on the audience unexpectedly, while listeners were being kept spellbound by the inexhaustible well of creativity of these four players improvising together.

They weave just such a spell from the very first piece here, where Patitucci and Pérez set up an atmosphere that pervades all of ‘Zero Gravity to the 15th Dimension’, their piano figures and delicate pizzicato fills developing into a sonic landscape for Shorter’s invention, coupled with Blade’s timbral genius. One can sense the intense audience concentration in the atmosphere of the recording. ‘Smilin’ Though’ builds over a bass ostinato figure that somehow keeps running for the first half of the piece, even when Pérez is creating different repetitive patterns above, and Shorter is overlaying abstract ideas. There’s space for all members to pick up the thread of each piece, and change its direction, and all the time the listening and interaction is exemplary. The introduction to ‘Orbits’ is punctuated by short whistles, before Patitucci lays down a melodic contour, again opening the landscape for a contrasting series of ideas from all four players.

The closing ‘She Moves Though The Fair’ has Pérez stopping piano strings and playing the inside of the instrument, while Blade sets out a pulse and Patitucci takes elegant bass excursions, showing how the band never strays too far from melody and rhythm but keeps its edge of excitement intact, before some volcanic collective improvisation. A gem of an album by one of the greatest of all jazz quartets.