Wayne Shorter

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Miles Davis and Wayne Shorter in the 1960s quintet
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Miles Davis and Wayne Shorter in the 1960s quintet

Wayne Shorter (born August 25, 1933) is an American jazz composer and saxophonist.

Commonly regarded as one of the more important American jazz sax players and composers since the 1960s, Shorter has recorded dozens of albums as a leader, and appeared on dozens more with others. Many of his compositions have become standards.

Contents

[edit] Early life and career

Shorter was born in Newark, New Jersey, and attended Newark Arts High School. He was encouraged by his father to take up the saxophone as a teenager (his brother Alan became a trumpeter). After graduating from New York University in 1956 Shorter spent two years in the US Army, during which time he played briefly with Horace Silver. After his discharge from the army he played with Maynard Ferguson.

In 1959 Shorter joined Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. He stayed with Blakey for five years, and eventually became musical director for the group.

[edit] With Miles Davis

In 1964, Miles Davis persuaded Shorter to leave Blakey and join the Miles Davis Quintet alongside Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams. Davis had been searching for a saxophonist to replace John Coltrane for some time, and the new quintet is considered by many to have been Davis's strongest working group. Shorter composed extensively for Davis ("Prince of Darkness", "ESP", "Footprints", "Sanctuary", and many others; on some albums he provided half of the compositions).

Herbie Hancock had this to say of Shorter's tenure in the group: "The master writer to me, in that group, was Wayne Shorter. He still is a master. Wayne was one of the few people who brought music to Miles that didn't get changed." Davis said: "Wayne is a real composer. He writes scores, write the parts for everybody just as he wants them to sound. He also brought in a kind of curiosity about working with musical rules. If they didn't work, then he broke them, but with musical sense; he understood that freedom in music was the ability to know the rules in order to bend them to your own satisfaction and taste."

Simultaneous with his time in the Miles Davis quintet, Shorter recorded several albums for Blue Note Records, featuring almost exclusively his own compositions. JuJu and Speak No Evil are two of the most well known recordings from this era. They are notable for their use of:

  • pentatonic melodies harmonised with pedal points and complex harmonic relationships;
  • structured solos that reflect the composition's melody as much as its harmony;
  • long rests as an integral part of the music, in contrast with other, more effusive, players of the time (e.g. John Coltrane).

He also recorded occasionally as a sideman (again, mainly for Blue Note) with Donald Byrd, McCoy Tyner, Grachan Moncur III, Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, and bandmates Hancock and Williams. Until 1968 he played tenor saxophone exclusively. The final album on which he played tenor in the regular sequence of Davis albums was Filles de Kilimanjaro. In 1969 he played the soprano saxophone on the Davis album In a Silent Way and on his own Super Nova (recorded with then-current Davis sidemen Chick Corea and John McLaughlin). In live Davis recordings from summer 1969 to early spring 1970 he played both saxophones. By the early 1970s, however, he chiefly played soprano saxophone.

Shorter remained in Davis's band after the breakup of the quintet in 1968, playing on early jazz fusion recordings including In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew (both 1969). His last live dates and studio recordings with Davis were in 1970.

[edit] Weather Report period, 1970 to 1986

In 1970, along with keyboardist Joe Zawinul (also a veteran of the Miles Davis group), Shorter helped form Weather Report. Other original members were bassist Miroslav Vitous, percussionist Airto Moreira, and drummer Alphonse Mouzon. After Vitous' departure in 1973 Shorter and Zawinul co-led the group until the band's break up in late 1985. A great variety of excellent musicians that would make up Weather Report alumnus over the years (most notably the revolutionary bassist Jaco Pastorius) would demonstrate that the band could still produce great music despite changes in personnel.

[edit] Additional work in this period

Shorter also recorded critically acclaimed albums as leader, notably Native Dancer, which featured Brazilian composer and vocalist Milton Nascimento, and Atlantis. He also contributed to several albums by Joni Mitchell.

Concurrently, in the late 1970s and the early 1980s he toured in the V.S.O.P. quintet. This group was a revival of the 1960s Miles Davis quintet, except that Freddie Hubbard filled the trumpet chair instead of Miles.

For further discussion of V.S.O.P. please see Herbie Hancock.

[edit] Recent career

After leaving Weather Report, Shorter continued to record and lead groups in jazz fusion styles. He has also maintained an occasional working relationship with Herbie Hancock, including a tribute album recorded shortly after Davis's death with Hancock, Carter, Williams and Wallace Roney. He continued to appear on Joni Mitchell's records in the 1990s.

In 1995 Shorter released the album High Life, his first solo recording for seven years. It was also Shorter's debut as a leader for Verve Records. Shorter composed all the compositions on the album and co-produced it with the bassist Marcus Miller. High Life received the Grammy Award for best Contemporary Jazz Album in 1997.

Shorter's wife Ana Maria and their niece Dalila were both killed on TWA Flight 800 in 1996, and he married Carolina Dos Santos, a close friend of Ana Maria, in 1999.

Shorter would work with Hancock once again in 1997, on the much acclaimed and heralded album 1+1. The song Aung San Suu Kyi won both Hancock and Shorter a Grammy award.

Shorter formed his current band in 2000, the first permanent acoustic group under his leadership. The quartet is composed of Shorter, pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci, and drummer Brian Blade. Two albums of live recordings featuring this quartet have been released (Footprints Live (2001) and Beyond the Sound Barrier (2005)). The quartet has received great acclaim from fans and critics, and the musicians have come to consider themselves family on and off stage. Shorter's 2003 album Alegria received the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Jazz Album; it features the quartet with a host of other musicians, including pianist Brad Mehldau, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington and former Weather Report percussionist Alex Acuña. Beyond the Sound Barrier received the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Jazz Album.

Shorter is a Nichiren Buddhist.

[edit] Discography

[edit] As leader

  • 1959 Introducing Wayne Shorter
  • 1960 Second Genesis
  • 1962 Wayning Moments Plus
  • 1964 Night Dreamer
  • 1964 JuJu
  • 1964 Speak No Evil
  • 1965 The Soothsayer
  • 1965 Et Cetera
  • 1965 The All Seeing Eye
  • 1966 Adam's Apple
  • 1967 Schizophrenia
  • 1969 Super Nova
  • 1970 Moto Grosso Feio
  • 1970 Odyssey of Iska
  • 1974 Native Dancer
  • 1985 Atlantis
  • 1986 Phantom Navigator
  • 1988 Joy Ryder
  • 1995 High Life
  • 2002 Footprints Live
  • 2003 Alegría
  • 2005 Beyond the Sound Barrier

[edit] With Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers

  • 1959 Africaine
  • 1960 A Night in Tunisia
  • 1960 Like Someone in Love
  • 1960 Meet You at the Jazz Corner of the World
  • 1960 Roots & Herbs
  • 1960 The Big Beat
  • 1961 A Day With Art Blakey
  • 1961 Impulse!!! Art Blakey!!! Jazz Messengers!!!
  • 1961 Buhaina's Delight
  • 1961 Mosaic
  • 1961 The Freedom Rider
  • 1961 The Witch Doctor
  • 1961 Tokyo 1961
  • 1962 Caravan
  • 1962 Three Blind Mice, Volume 1
  • 1962 Three Blind Mice, Volume 2
  • 1963 Ugetsu
  • 1964 Free for All
  • 1964 Indestructible

[edit] With other Blue Note artists

[edit] With Miles Davis

  • 1964 Miles In Berlin
  • 1965 E.S.P.
  • 1965 Live at the Plugged Nickel
  • 1966 Miles Smiles
  • 1967 Sorcerer
  • 1967 Nefertiti
  • 1968 Miles in the Sky
  • 1968 Filles de Kilimanjaro
  • 1969 In A Silent Way
  • 1969 1969Miles: Festiva de Juan Pins [Sony Japan release only]
  • 1969 Bitches Brew
  • 1970 Live at the Fillmore East (March 7, 1970): It's About That Time
  • 1974 Big Fun (album) (1969-1972 recordings)
  • 1976 Water Babies (1967-1968 recordings)
  • 1979 Circle in the Round (1955-1970 recordings)
  • 1980 Directions (1960-1970 recordings)

[edit] With Weather Report

[edit] With others

[edit] Books

  • Michelle Mercer, Footprints: The Life and Work of Wayne Shorter (Tarcher/Penguin, 2005)

[edit] External links

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