The Jazz Dispensary Top Shelf Series celebrates the second release of a jazz legend. Woody Shaw was already looking beyond the boundaries of hard bop when he recorded Song of Songs. His second album as a leader is compact with four extended compositions, but its musical reach is enormous.
Shaw’s writing balances intricate harmony, spiritual searching and emotional candor without sacrificing the rhythmic propulsion at the heart of jazz. The release brings out the sonic brilliance of the original and is available on high-quality vinyl, as well as digital and compact disc formats.
The trumpeter leads an adventurous sextet featuring George Cables on keyboards, Henry Franklin on bass, Woodrow Theus II on drums, Emanuel Boyd on flute and tenor saxophone, and Ramon Morris on tenor saxophone. Bennie Maupin also makes a memorable guest appearance. More than five decades later, Song of Songs still sounds like the work of an artist discovering his own language in real time.
Shaw draws upon an Indonesian five-note scale for a nearly 12-minute composition of “Song of Songs,” dedicated to the people of Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. The theme is haunting, the arrangement cinematic, and Shaw’s trumpet forceful without overwhelming the ensemble. Cables and the horns help turn political concern into searching, deeply human music.
“The Goat and the Archer” was inspired by Shaw’s Capricorn astrological sign; the album’s most immediately accessible selection rides a bluesy, swinging groove. Bennie Maupin’s tenor saxophone adds muscle and mischief, while Shaw’s solo demonstrates how naturally he could place advanced harmonic ideas inside a performance that still feels loose and inviting.
Shaw transforms the pain of his separation from his wife into one of the album’s most vulnerable moments with “Love: For the One You Can’t Have.” The composition moves between tenderness and agitation, with the ensemble responding to each emotional shift. His trumpet does not merely state the melody; it argues, remembers, and finally accepts.
“The Awakening” is a spiritual-jazz journey built on collective listening rather than displays of individual virtuosity. The musicians move through contrasting moods as though discovering them together. Shaw’s playing is commanding, but what lingers is the sound of a working band finding its identity and of a leader recognizing the direction his music must take.
With Song of Songs, Shaw connected the language of bebop to something freer, more global and more personal. The album anticipates the extraordinary work that followed while standing firmly on its own. Jazz Dispensary’s Top Shelf reissue, AAA-mastered by Kevin Gray and pressed on 180-gram vinyl, places this overlooked achievement back where it belongs: in the conversation about Woody Shaw’s essential recordings.
Click here for purchase information on this new reissue of Woody Shaw’s ‘Song of Songs.’
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