After Intermission, Brad Mehldau's still lingering atmospheres nicely ushered in The Wayne Shorter Quartet, I thought.

The 'legendary' mystique of Wayne Shorter made us clap, but so did the exciting vigour of Shorter and his adventuresome associates.

The quartet played a lot of tunes from the Footprints! Live recording, but, of course, played them differently this night at Massey Hall.

Shorter's music quickly drew us into the subconscious and intuitive flows of life, while his carefully placed, skittering vocalizations further reminded us that he is an original and compelling stylist on the soprano and tenor saxophones.

It was beautiful to see the special telepathy between swift acting drummer Brian Blade, the driven ostinato bass of John Patitucci, and the ever presiding Danilo Perez on piano: they simply let the rhythm burn.

Especially in the case of bassist Patitucci, it seems that his mission — and pleasure — is to play the grooviest ostinato figure he can, and take us to the music's silent core.