Wayne Shorter

Wayne Shorter (born August 25, 1933) is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.[1]

Wayne Shorter
Convocation Hall, Toronto,
November 27, 1977
Background information
Born (1933-08-25) August 25, 1933
Newark, New Jersey, United States
GenresModal jazz, crossover jazz, post-bop, hard bop, jazz fusion, third stream
Occupation(s)Musician, composer
InstrumentsTenor saxophone, soprano saxophone
Years active1958–present
LabelsBlue Note, Columbia, Verve
Associated actsArt Blakey, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard, Joni Mitchell, John Pattitucci, Weather Report
Websitewww.wayneshorter.com

Shorter came to wide prominence in the late 1950s as a member of, and eventually primary composer for, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. In the 1960s, he went on to join Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet, and from there he co-founded the jazz fusion band Weather Report. He has recorded over 20 albums as a bandleader.

Many of Shorter's compositions have become jazz standards, and his output has earned worldwide recognition, critical praise and various commendations. Shorter has won 11 Grammy Awards.[2] He has also received acclaim for his mastery of the soprano saxophone (after switching his focus from the tenor in the late 1960s), beginning an extended reign in 1970 as Down Beat's annual poll-winner on that instrument, winning the critics' poll for 10 consecutive years and the readers' for 18.[3] The New York Times described Shorter in 2008 as "probably jazz's greatest living small-group composer and a contender for greatest living improviser".[4] In 2017, he was awarded the Polar Music Prize.[5]

Biography

Early life and career

Wayne Shorter was born in Newark, New Jersey, United States,[1] and attended Newark Arts High School,[6][7] from which he graduated in 1952. He loved music, being encouraged by his father to take up the clarinet as a teenager; his older brother Alan played alto saxophone before switching to the trumpet in college. While in high school Wayne also performed with the Nat Phipps Band in Newark, NJ. After graduating from New York University with a degree in music education in 1956, Shorter spent two years in the U.S. Army, during which time he played briefly with Horace Silver. After his discharge, he played with Maynard Ferguson. In his youth Shorter had acquired the nickname "Mr. Gone", which later became an album title for Weather Report.[8]

His early influences include Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane and Coleman Hawkins. In 1959, Shorter joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers where he stayed for four years, and eventually became the band's musical director. Together they toured the US, Japan and Europe, recorded several recognized albums and he also composed pieces for the band. During this time Shorter "established himself as one of the most gifted of the young saxophonists" and received international acknowledgment.[9]

With Miles Davis (1964–70)

Herbie Hancock said of Shorter's tenure in Davis's Second Great Quintet: "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."[10] Davis said, "Wayne is a real composer. He writes scores, writes the parts for everybody just as he wants them to sound. ... Wayne 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."[11]

Ian Carr, musician and Rough Guide author, states that with Davis, Shorter found his own voice as a player and composer. "Blakey's hard-driving, straight-ahead rhythms had brought out the muscularity in Shorter's tenor playing, but the greater freedom of the Davis rhythm-section allowed him to explore new emotional and technical dimensions."[9]

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.

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). When performing live with Davis, and on recordings from summer 1969 to early spring 1970, he played both soprano and tenor saxophones; by the early 1970s, however, he chiefly played soprano.

Solo Blue Note recordings

Simultaneous with his time in the Davis quintet, Shorter recorded several albums for Blue Note Records, featuring almost exclusively his own compositions, with a variety of line-ups, quartets and larger groups, including Blue Note favourites such as trumpeter Freddie Hubbard. His first Blue Note album (of 11 in total recorded from 1964 to 1970) was Night Dreamer, recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in 1964 with Lee Morgan (trumpet), McCoy Tyner (piano), Reggie Workman (bass) and Elvin Jones (drums).

The later album The All Seeing Eye (rec. 1965, rel. 1966) was a workout with a larger group, while Adam's Apple(rec. 1966, rel. 1967) was back to carefully constructed melodies by Shorter leading a quartet. Then a sextet again in the following year for Schizophrenia (rec. 1967, rel. 1969) with Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, trombonist Curtis Fuller, alto saxophonist/flautist James Spaulding and strong rhythms by drummer Joe Chambers.

Shorter also recorded occasionally as a sideman (again, mainly for Blue Note) with trumpeter Donald Byrd, McCoy Tyner, trombonist Grachan Moncur III, Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, and bandmates Herbie Hancock and drummer Tony Williams.

Weather Report (1971–1986)
Shorter with Weather Report in Amsterdam, in 1980

Following the release of Odyssey of Iska in 1970, Shorter formed the fusion group Weather Report with Davis veteran keyboardist Joe Zawinul and bassist Miroslav Vitous. The other original members were 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 variety of musicians would make up Weather Report over the years (most notably the revolutionary bassist Jaco Pastorius) helping the band produce many high quality recordings in diverse styles, with funk, bebop, Latin jazz, ethnic music, and futurism being the most prevalent denominators.

Solo and side projects

Shorter also recorded critically acclaimed albums as a bandleader, notably 1974's Native Dancer, which featured Hancock and Brazilian composer and vocalist Milton Nascimento.

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 Davis quintet, except that Freddie Hubbard filled the trumpet chair. Shorter appeared with the same former Davis bandmates on the Carlos Santana double LP The Swing of Delight (1980), for which he also composed a number of pieces.

From 1977 through 2002, he appeared on 10 Joni Mitchell studio albums, gaining him a wider audience. He played an extended solo on the title track of Steely Dan's 1977 album Aja.

Shorter performing in 2006

Later career

After leaving Weather Report in 1986, Shorter continued to record and lead groups in jazz fusion styles, including touring in 1988 with guitarist Carlos Santana, who appeared on This is This! (1986), the last Weather Report disc. There is a concert video recorded at the Lugano Jazz Festival in 1987, with Jim Beard (keyboards), Carl James (bass), Terri Lyne Carrington (drums), and Marilyn Mazur (percussion). In 1989, he contributed to a hit on the rock charts, playing the sax solo on Don Henley's song "The End of the Innocence" and also produced the album Pilar by the Portuguese singer-songwriter Pilar Homem de Melo. He has also maintained an occasional working relationship with Herbie Hancock, including a tribute album recorded shortly after Miles Davis's death with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams and Wallace Roney. He continued to appear on Mitchell's records in the 1990s and can be heard on the soundtrack of the Harrison Ford film The Fugitive (1993).

In 1995, Shorter released the album High Life, his first solo recording for seven years. It was also his 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 worked with Herbie Hancock once again in 1997, on the much acclaimed and heralded album 1+1. The song "Aung San Suu Kyi" (named for the Burmese pro-democracy activist) won both Hancock and Shorter a Grammy Award.

In 2009, he was announced as one of the headline acts at the Gnaoua World Music Festival in Essaouira, Morocco. His 2013 live album Without a Net (rec. 2010) is his first with Blue Note Records since Odyssey of Iska (rec. 1970, rel. 1971).

Quartet
The Wayne Shorter Quartet at the Teatro degli Arcimboldi, Milan, 2010

In 2000, Shorter formed the first permanent acoustic group under his name, a quartet with pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci, and drummer Brian Blade, playing his own compositions, many of them reworkings of tunes going back to the 1960s. Four albums of live recordings have been released: Footprints Live! (rec. live 2001, rel. 2002); Beyond the Sound Barrier (rec. live 2002–2004, rel. 2005); Without a Net (rec. live 2010, rel. 2013); and Emanon (2018), with the latter, in addition to live material, including Shorter’s quartet in a studio session with the 34-piece Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. The quartet has received great acclaim from fans and critics, especially for the strength of Shorter's tenor saxophone playing. The biography Footprints: The Life and Work of Wayne Shorter by journalist Michelle Mercer examines the working life of the musicians as well as Shorter's thoughts and Buddhist beliefs.[12] Beyond the Sound Barrier received the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Jazz Album.

Shorter's 2003 album Alegría (his first studio album for 10 years, since High Life) 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 Carrington and former Weather Report percussionist Alex Acuña. Shorter's compositions, some new, some reworked from his Miles Davis period, feature the complex Latin rhythms that he specialised in during his Weather Report days.

Lifetime achievement recognition

On September 17, 2013, Shorter received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.[13]

On December 18, 2014, the Recording Academy announced that Shorter was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in honor of his "prolific contributions to our culture and history".[14]

In 2016, Shorter was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in the field of music composition, the only jazz artist to receive the honor that year.[15]

In 2017, Shorter was announced as the joint winner of the Polar Music Prize. The award committee stated: "Without the musical explorations of Wayne Shorter, modern music would not have drilled so deep."[5]

In 2018, Shorter was a recipient of a Kennedy Center Honor Award.

Wayne Shorter: Zero Gravity

In 2015, producer/director Dorsay Alavi began filming a documentary about the life of Wayne Shorter called Wayne Shorter: Zero Gravity.[16] The film is set to be released in 2020.[17]

Mega Nova

In 2016, it was announced that Shorter, Carlos Santana, and Herbie Hancock would begin touring under the name Mega Nova. Also included within the supergroup was bassist Marcus Miller and drummer Cindy Blackman Santana.[18] Their first show together was on August 24, 2016 at the Hollywood Bowl.[19][20]

Health

Shorter’s health over the past few years has finally forced him to retire from his near 70-year performing career. As his health permits, he continues to compose with a particular focus on completing a new operatic work.[21]

Personal life

Shorter met Teruko (Irene) Nakagami in 1961. They were later married and had a daughter, Miyako. Some of his compositions are copyrighted as "Miyako Music" and Shorter dedicated the pieces "Miyako" and "Infant Eyes" to his daughter. The couple separated in 1964.[22]

Shorter met Ana Maria Patricio in 1966 and they were married in 1970.[22] In 1985, their daughter Iska died of a grand mal seizure at age 14. Ana Maria and the couple's niece, Dalila, were both killed on July 17, 1996, on TWA Flight 800, while travelling to visit him in Italy.[23] Dalila was the daughter of Ana Maria Shorter's sister and her husband, jazz vocalist Jon Lucien.[22] In 1999, Shorter married Carolina Dos Santos, a close friend of Ana Maria. She practices Nichiren Buddhism and is a longtime member of the Buddhist association Soka Gakkai International.[22]

Composer and producer Rick Shorter was Shorter's cousin.[24]

Discography
Main article: Wayne Shorter discography

Awards

References
  1. Colin Larkin, ed. (1997). The Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music (Concise ed.). Virgin Books. p. 1081/2. ISBN 1-85227-745-9.
  2. Past Winners Search for Wayne Shorter. GRAMMY.com. Retrieved 2013-06-04.
  3. Down Beat Poll Archive. DownBeat.com. Retrieved 2013-06-02
  4. Ratliff, Ben. "Music Review: A Birthday Bash With a Harmonious Mix of Guests". The New York Times. December 3, 2008. Retrieved 2013-06-04.
  5. Chow, Andrew R. (February 7, 2017). "Sting and Wayne Shorter Win Polar Music Prize". New York Times. Retrieved February 8, 2017.
  6. A Brief History Archived April 19, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, Newark Arts High School. Accessed August 10, 2008.
  7. Pompilio, Natalie. "Celebrating one of Newark's own, a living jazz legend, at NJPAC", NJ Advance Media for NJ.com, April 20, 2017. Accessed August 14, 2018. "Shorter, a graduate of Newark Arts High School, began his professional career more than six decades ago and shows no sign of slowing down."
  8. "Weather Report - Forecast: Tomorrow (Columbia Legacy)". BigTakeOver.com. Retrieved October 22, 2018.
  9. Carr, Ian; Fairweather, Digby; Priestley, Brian (1995). The Rough Guide to Jazz - The Essential Companion to Artists and Albums. Rough Guides Ltd. pp. 584–585. ISBN 1-85828-137-7.
  10. Len Lyons (1989). "Herbie Hancock". The Great Jazz Pianists: Speaking Of Their Lives And Music. Da Capo Press. p. 274. ISBN 978-0306803437.
  11. Davis, Miles; Troupe, Quincy (1990). "Chapter 13". Miles: The Autobiography. Simon and Schuster. p. 274. ISBN 0-671-72582-3.
  12. "Footprints: The Life and Work of Wayne Shorter". AllAboutJazz.com. Retrieved November 19, 2010.
  13. "Thelonious Monk Lifetime Achievement Award". Broadwayworld.com. Archived from the original on February 20, 2017. Retrieved December 18, 2014.
  14. "Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award Press Release". Grammy.com. Retrieved December 18, 2014.
  15. Wayne Shorter awarded Guggenheim Fellowship. Jazz Times. April 8, 2016.
  16. "Wayne Shorter: Zero Gravity Documentary", Pledgemusic.
  17. "Wayne Shorter: Zero Gravity. A Documentary on the Life of Wayne Shorter". WayneShorterDoc.com. Retrieved September 9, 2016.
  18. Smith, Steve (August 17, 2016). "Inside Carlos Santana's New Jazz-Rock Supergroup". RollingStone.com. Retrieved August 26, 2016.
  19. Collins, Shanna (August 24, 2016). "Carlos Santan's Magical Supergroup Is Here To Break Barriers". Vibe.com. Retrieved August 26, 2016.
  20. Barton, Chris (August 25, 2016). "Review: Carlos Santana, Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock rarely take off with Mega Nova at the Hollywood Bowl". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 26, 2016.
  21. "Patitucci Juggles 'All the Elements of Music'". DownBeat Magazine. May 10, 2019.
  22. "A Separate Peace". People.com. Retrieved February 21, 2010.
  23. "Times Topics". The New York Times. Retrieved June 4, 2013.
  24. Old Times, Winter / Spring 2012 - p. 12, UCC principal's son makes beautiful music, Nick Krewen
  25. "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.
  26. "2014 Summit Highlights Photo". Academy guest of honor and jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter accompanies Esperanza Spalding in a duet performance at the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco.
  27. "Rolf Schock Prize Recipients 2017", The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Retrieved 15 November 2018.
  28. "Marsalis, Krall, Corea Among DownBeat Readers Poll Winners". DownBeat. October 24, 2017. Retrieved January 19, 2021.
  29. West, Michael J. (February 2019). "Shorter Among Kennedy Center Honorees". DownBeat. Vol. 86 no. 2. p. 15.
  30. "Shorter, Salvant and Benson Among DownBeat Readers Poll Winners". October 21, 2019. Retrieved January 20, 2021.

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