April 14, 2023
ARTEMIS honors the legendary Wayne Shorter with a stunning new version of his beautiful ballad “Penelope.” The piece, which was first recorded in 1965 for Shorter’s Blue Note album Etcetera, was arranged by the band’s pianist and musical director Renee Rosnes.
“Wayne Shorter was a musical genius, a visionary thinker, and a magical improviser who knew no creative bounds,” says Rosnes. “He immortalized many women–family members, friends and great women of history alike–through his compositions including ‘Ana Maria,’ ‘Iska,’ ‘Miyako,’ ‘Joanna’s Theme,’ ‘Aung San Suu Kyi,’ ‘Sacagawea,’ ‘The Three Marias,’ ‘Midnight in Carlotta’s Hair,’ ‘Marie Antoinette,’ and ‘Nefertiti.’ The haunting melody of ‘Penelope’ has a sound of inevitability and there’s an emotional weight to every melodic and harmonic choice. We will miss Wayne so much. He left great beauty in this world.”
“Penelope” is the closing track of ARTEMIS’ marvelous new album In Real Time, the follow-up to the band’s acclaimed 2020 self-titled debut. The album presents a new lineup of the collective with founding members—Rosnes, trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, bassist Noriko Ueda, and drummer Allison Miller—joined by newcomers Nicole Glover on tenor saxophone and Alexa Tarantino on alto saxophone, soprano saxophone, and flute. The 8-song set, which showcases both the improvisational strength of its members and their respective gifts as composers, was introduced last month with Ueda’s brightly swinging lead single “Lights Away From Home.”
