Pinocchio (Shorter) A Wayne Shorter tune originally recorded in 1967 by the Miles Davis Quintet for the Nefertiti album. This was Peter Erskine's first recording with the group. In Woodard's retrospective, Erskine recalled, "Whenever I think of the way Tony played that with Miles [on Nefertiti]," Erskine says, "there was so much finesse and it was so slippery. Ours was definitely a harder, electronic version of it. So I was crestfallen when they went in to listen to the way it sounded and said, 'Hey, we're done. Let's just use this.' I was, 'Wait, wait...' And Jaco turned to me and said, 'You have to join the band the same way I did, with the first take.'" Erskine told much the same story to Brian Glasser: "One of the first things we did in the studio was 'Pinocchio,' which was actually just a soundcheck for the engineer--it was the very first thing we put on tape that morning, and I was dismayed during playback because I was playing all over the place, partly just to give the engineer variety. I was certainly a little self- conscious that this would be my take on the great 'Pinocchio'! And then Jaco turned to me and said, 'Let's just use this,' and I was, 'No, no!' And he said, 'Well, you have to join the band the same way I did: first take,' because, of course, his first take was 'Cannonball.' And I said, 'Okay, fair enough.'" |