This is a transcription of Wayne Shorter's tenor saxophone solo on his original composition Pug Nose .
Used with permission of the author

Pug Nose is a medium swing tune that was originally recorded on Shorter's Wayneing Moments in 1959, and was later rereleased on The Vee Jay Years in 1988. The rest of the band consisted of, Lee Morgan trumpet, Wynton Kelley piano, Paul Chambers, bass and Jimmy Cobb, drums.

Stylistically the composition is quite typical of Shorter's writing from this time. It is a typical neo-bop tune with 8th note runs in the melody over II-V oriented progressions. There are also Dom7 passing chords and some deceptive resolutions that give it Shorter's distinctive touch. Especially the last bar of the second ending has a very abrupt leap from a Bmaj7 chord to one bar of Emin7 and then to a Bbmin7 in the first bar of the B section. It is almost as if within that 3 bar progression there is a seed to the kind of harmony he would later explore and develop. The melody is simple and very lyrical. The first 4 bars are basically all diatonic in the key of Ab, which is the prevalent tonic of the piece. The last 4 bars also have a melody using the Ab major scale. The form is a standard AABA with a tag attached to it. Each section is 8 bars and the tag is 4 bars.

Shorter's sound on this recording is a bit more raw and uncontrolled than what it was to become later, especially by the time he was playing with Miles Davis group.

In his solo he creates a fine balance between complexity and simplicity in the way he chooses the melodic material. Sometimes he plays simple pentatonic structures sometimes highly chromatic lines. He outlines the harmony very simply and clearly, with triads or 7th chord arpeggios throughout the solo, but the way he rhythmically gives this melodic material life makes it sound very intriguing. He avoids falling into a 8th note "lull". Instead, his rhythms are very spontaneous, intuitive, and complex, and at the same time swinging. The phrasing tends to be 4 bar statements with some 2 bar phrases at times. Each phrase is a very clearly stated sentence and has a completeness that shows maturity and a deep understanding of what a musical idea is. At several points, i.e. in bar 13, one can hear Shorter's own distinctive voice and note choice, and although recorded in 1959 it could have been played today.