Wayne Shorter

His career as an influential tenor saxophonist and composer reached across more than half a century, tracking jazz's complex evolution during that span.

Mr. (Mr. Shorter and Mr. Shorter ushered in a profound new stage of his career in 2000, when he formed an acoustic quartet with the pianist Danilo Pérez, the bassist John Patitucci and the drummer Brian Blade. Zawinul and Mr. While in Weather Report, Mr. It took more than a decade for Mr. Nascimento had come from Mr. Shorter was the instrumental voice out front in Weather Report, and second only to Mr. Unlike the other members of the Miles Davis Quintet, Mr. Zawinul and the Czech bassist Miroslav Vitous, Mr. Shorter wore that slight as a badge of honor, at one point painting the words “Mr.

The composer and saxophonist, who won a dozen Grammy Awards and recorded with everyone from Miles Davis to Joni Mitchell, died on Thursday, March 2 in Los ...

As it is with every human being, he is irreplaceable and was able to reach the pinnacle of excellence as a saxophonist, composer, orchestrator, and recently, composer of the masterful opera '...Iphigenia'. "We have a phrase [in Buddhism]: hom nim yoh," he said in the 2013 NPR interview." His relationship with the iconic Blue Note Records from 1964-1970 resulted in a number of now-classic recordings including Juju (recorded with members of John Coltrane's quartet), Speak No Evil (recorded with two fellow Miles Davis bandmates) and The Soothsayer (featuring fellow Blue Note artist Freddie Hubbard). After studying music at New York University in the mid-1950s, he joined a band that brought him to the attention of the jazz world as a composer and saxophonist: Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. Many of the albums contained Shorter compositions that are now considered jazz standards. In the mid-'60s, Shorter solidified the second coming of the Miles Davis Quintet, joining Davis, bassist Ron Carter, drummer Tony Williams and pianist Herbie Hancock.

Saxophonist and master improviser with artists ranging from Miles Davis to Joni Mitchell, and with lineups including Weather Report.

[Freddie Hubbard](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/jan/05/obituary-freddie-hubbard) taking the trumpeter’s place, and with Santana. The Panamanian pianist Danilo Pérez, the bassist John Patitucci and the drummer [Brian Blade](https://www.brianblade.com/) applied the scintillating interaction of the Davis group to a repertoire mixing Shorter’s compositions with those of Villa-Lobos, Sibelius and Mendelssohn, folk songs and medieval carols. [James Brown](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/dec/26/guardianobituaries.usa) and Jimi Hendrix, hankering for a new sound and the younger audience it might attract. Four years with Blakey gave Shorter a significant presence on the jazz scene, resulting in a series of well-received albums under his own name for the Blue Note label, including Night Dreamer (1964), Speak No Evil (1966) and Super Nova (1969). Shorter had resumed his solo recording career in 1974 with a Brazilian-inflected album titled Native Dancer, featuring the singer-guitarist Milton Nascimento. After Coltrane’s departure four years earlier, the trumpeter had hired and fired a succession of saxophonists before finding the voice he really needed alongside his own. At a theatre in Newark he was able to hear regular performances by the bands of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Stan Kenton and others. At 19, having spent a year pushing trolleys at the Singer factory to earn his tuition fees, he started a music education course at New York University, where his classes included psychology, philosophy and sociology. Joseph, born on a farm in Alabama, worked for the Singer sewing machine company; his wife nurtured the creativity of their two sons with paints and clay. His last album release, [a triple-CD set titled Emanon](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/aug/31/jazz-album-of-the-month-wayne-shorter-emanon-review-vivid-and-sublimely-thrilling), featured music for a chamber orchestra and live recordings of his quartet from a London concert, accompanied by a lavishly produced comic book reflecting his lifelong interest in science fiction; it won the 2018 Grammy award for the year’s best jazz instrumental album. [Ethan Iverson](https://ethaniverson.com/) in 2015, he said: “Most of the kids during the summer, they were out playing baseball or football. As he rose to prominence with the bands of Art Blakey and

Shorter was a founding member of two of the most seminal jazz groups – Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and the Miles Davis Quintet.

“Wayne was one of the few people who brought music to Miles that didn’t get changed.” Herbie Hancock once said of Shorter in Miles Davis’s Second Great Quintet: “The master writer to me, in that group, was Wayne Shorter. Shorter, a tenor saxophonist, made his debut in 1959 and would go on to be a founding member of two of the most seminal jazz groups – Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and the Miles Davis Quintet.

Steely Dan represented the perfect nexus between rock and jazz, and when they need a saxophone solo on 'Aja' they turned to jazz great Wayne Shorter.

In a significant way, Steely Dan provided the bridge for Shorter to peer into the world of rock music. Although he was reticent to work with rock groups, Shorter’s experience with Steely Dan obviously softened his stance as he would later play with everyone from “I introduced him around and then walked out. I said, ‘Sure’ and sent him into Studio C. “Gary said, ‘Well Donald and Walter need a favour. “During the session, I was in my office sitting at my desk one day when Gary came up,” LaPalm told writer By the time the pair were in the studio creating Aja, Steely Dan had transformed into either rock’s version of a jazz band or jazz’s version of a rock band. “When Wayne arrived at the Village Recorder, I met him before Donald and Walter. I said, ‘You tell me.’ He said, ‘How’s Friday at 1 p.m.?’ I said, ‘Great.'” Most rock musicians probably wouldn’t have known Shorter from a hole in the wall in 1977, but Walter Becker and Donald Fagen were no average rock musicians, and Since they were pioneering their own brand of fusion music, why not ask a fellow pioneer to play some sax on the title track? By ditching most of the musicians from the band’s original lineup and getting the best session players available, Becker and Fagen began incorporating more complex arrangements into their music.

Saxophone legend Wayne Shorter, who pioneered jazz fusion with Weather Report and played with everyone from Miles Davis to Steely Dan, has died at 89.

After the original iteration of the Second Great Quintet disbanded in 1968, Shorter continued to contribute to Davis’ albums, which included classics like 1969’s In a Silent Way and 1970’s Bitches Brew. After Weather Report broke up in 1986, Shorter devoted his life to his solo career, which frequently incorporated elements of his adopted religion, Nichiren Buddhism. 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.” Wayne was one of the few people who brought music to Miles that didn’t get changed.” He writes scores, writes the parts for everybody just as he wants them to sound,” Davis claimed about Shorter in his 1990 autobiography. After half a decade with Blakey, Shorter was recruited by Miles Davis to replace John Coltrane in his band.

Wayne Shorter, Belgrade, October 2010. Photo copyright Tim Dickeson Sebastian writes: A tribute to Wayne Shorter, who has died today at the age of 89, ...

[Herbie Hancock](https://twitter.com/herbiehancock/status/1631379950660988928)has written: “Wayne Shorter, my best friend, left us with courage in his heart, love and compassion for all, and a seeking spirit for the eternal future. [album review](https://londonjazznews.com/2022/08/29/wayne-shorter-terri-lyne-carrington-leo-genovese-esperanza-spalding-live-at-the-detroit-jazz-festival/)by Jon Turney As it is with every human being, he is irreplaceable.” [Helen Sung](https://www.facebook.com/HelenSungMusic): “I believe Wayne lives on with his unique power & grace, but our world is less vibrant without him on this plane of existence. [this](https://iverson.substack.com/p/tt-222-wayne-shorter-rip?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email). [John Turville’s Facebook page](https://www.facebook.com/jturville) [New York Times obituary](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/02/arts/music/wayne-shorter-dead.html)is superbly thoughtful .

Shorter made his name playing the tenor sax with drummer Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in the late 1950s and joined trumpeter Miles Davis' influential 1960s ...

"Wayne was one of the few people who brought music to Miles that didn't get changed." "The master writer to me, in that group, was Wayne Shorter," the keyboardist said. Shorter wrote some of the group's most famous songs including "E.S.P."

Like all great jazz musicians, the saxophonist Wayne Shorter, who died on Thursday, at the age of eighty-nine, had a distinctive, original, and instantly ...

Just as Shorter’s ingenious solos display a profound warmth at a respectful distance, his career over all, in the groups that he inspired and formed, evokes the profound humanity of his spiritual inspirations. [Steely Dan](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/my-high-school-crush-on-steely-dan), [Joni Mitchell](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/09/joni-mitchells-openhearted-heroism), and Bruce Hornsby, and also reunited with Hancock and even with Davis soon before the trumpeter’s death.) When it did, with a quartet that he founded in 2001, with the pianist Danilo Pérez, the bassist John Patitucci, and the drummer Brian Blade, Shorter made yet another crucial mark on the history of the music. The group was, in effect, a hangout quartet, with the familiar structure of melody and a string of solos giving way to a swirling, shifting, conversational flux. That sonic elusiveness also suggests the paradox of his place in jazz history: at the very center, but as if at the margins of that center, because, though Shorter created a long list of classic recordings as a leader of his own groups, he was a sideman in two of the greatest of all jazz ensembles—Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and [Miles Davis](https://www.newyorker.com/tag/miles-davis)’s second quintet—and was perhaps the most consequential of all sidemen. Davis turned his band electric (although he didn’t sell out to pop modes but, rather, radicalized them into something closer to densely orchestral electronic noise music) and changed its membership; in 1970, Shorter took part in the founding of a new band, Weather Report, which also integrated new pop and rock traditions into jazz performance. (Every one of them is a classic; I’m especially fond of “The Soothsayer,” recorded in 1965, which feels both elaborately composed and loose-limbedly swinging.) Shorter worked with a sort of family of like-minded musicians (including the trumpeters