Wayne Shorter

Born in Newark, New Jersey on August 25, 1933, Wayne Shorter had his first great jazz epiphany as a teenager: “I remember seeing Lester Young when I was 15 years old. It was a Norman Granz Jazz at the Philharmonic show in Newark and he was late coming to the theater. Me and a couple of other guys were waiting out front of the Adams Theater and when he finally did show up, he had the pork pie hat and everything. So then we were trying to figure out how to get into the theater from the fire escape around the back. We eventually got into the mezzanine and saw that whole show — Stan Kenton and Dizzy Gillespie bands together on stage doing ‘Peanut Vendor,’ Charlie Parker with strings doing ‘Laura’ and stuff like that. And Russell Jacquet…Ilinois Jacquet. He was there doing his thing. That whole scene impressed me so much that I just decided, ‘Hey, man, let me get a clarinet.’ So I got one when I was 16, and that’s when I started music.

Switching to tenor saxophone, Shorter formed a teenage band in Newark called The Jazz Informers. While still in high school, Shorter participated in several cutting contests on Newark’s jazz scene, including one memorable encounter with sax great Sonny Stitt. He attended college at New York University while also soaking up the Manhattan jazz scene by frequenting popular nightspots like Birdland and Cafe Bohemia. Wayne worked his way through college by playing with the Nat Phipps orchestra. Upon graduating in 1956, he worked briefly with Johnny Eaton and his Princetonians, earning the nickname “The Newark Flash” for his speed and facility on the tenor saxophone.

Just as he was beginning making his mark, Shorter was drafted into the Army. “A week before I went into the Army I went to the Cafe Bohemia to hear music, I said, for the last time in my life. I was standing at the bar having a cognac and I had my draft notice in my back pocket. That’s when I met Max Roach. He said, ‘You’re the kid from Newark, huh? You’re The Flash.’ And he asked me to sit in. They were changing drummers throughout the night, so Max played drums, then Art Taylor, then Art Blakey. Oscar Pettiford was on cello. Jimmy Smith came in the door with his organ. He drove to the club with his organ in a hearse. And outside we heard that Miles was looking for somebody named Cannonball. And I’m saying to myself, ‘All this stuff is going on and I gotta go to the Army in about five days!’”

Following his time in the service, Shorter had a brief stint in 1958 with Horace Silver and later played in the house band at Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem. It was around this time that Shorter began jamming with fellow tenor saxophonists John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins. In 1959, Shorter had a brief stint with the Maynard Ferguson big band before joining Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers in August of that year. He remained with the Jazz Messengers through 1963, becoming Blakey’s musical director and contributing several key compositions to the band’s book during those years. Shorter made his recording debut as a leader in 1959 for the Vee Jay label and in 1964 cut the first of a string of important recordings for the Blue Note label.”

In 1964 Miles Davis invited Wayne to go on the road. He joined Herbie Hancock (piano), Tony Williams (drums) and Ron Carter (bass). This tour turned into a 6 year run with Davis in which he recorded a number albums with him. Along with Davis, he helped craft a sound that changed the face of music In his autobiography, the late Miles Davis said about Wayne…“Wayne is a real composer…he knew that freedom in music was the ability to know the rules in order to bend them to your satisfaction and taste…” In his time with Miles he crafted what have become jazz standards like “Nefertiti,” “E.S.P.,” “Pinocchio,” “Sanctuary,” “Fall” and “Footprints.

Simultaneous with his time in the Miles 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 Freddie Hubbard. His first Blue Note album (of nine in total) was Night Dreamer recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in 1964 with Lee Morgan, McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman and Elvin Jones. The later album The All Seeing Eye was a free-jazz workout with a larger group, while Adam’s Apple of 1966 was back to carefully constructed melodies by Shorter leading a quartet. Then a sextet again in the following year for Schizophrenia with his Miles Davis band mates Hancock and Carter plus trombonist Curtis Fuller, alto saxophonist/flautist James Spaulding and strong rhythms by drummer Joe Chambers. These albums have recently been remastered by Rudy Van Gelder.

In 1970, Shorter co-founded the group Weather Report with keyboardist and Miles Davis alum, Joe Zawinul. It remained the premier fusion group through the ’70s and into the early ’80s before disbanding in 1985 after 16 acclaimed recordings, including 1980’s Grammy Award-winning double-live LP set, 8:30. Shorter formed his own group in 1986 and produced a succession of electric jazz albums for the Columbia label — 1986’s Atlantis, 1987’s Phantom Navigator, 1988’s Joy Ryder. He re-emerged on the Verve label with 1995’s High Life. After the tragic loss of his wife in 1996 (she was aboard the ill-fated Paris-bound flight TWA 800), Shorter returned to the scene with 1997’s 1+1, an intimate duet recording with pianist and former Miles Davis quintet bandmate Herbie Hancock. The two spent 1998 touring as a duet.

After Weather Report, Shorter continued to record and lead groups in jazz fusion styles, including touring in 1988 with guitarist Carlos Santana, who appeared on the last Weather Report disc This is This! In 1989, he scored 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.

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 would work with 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.

By the summer of 2001, Wayne began touring as the leader of a talented young lineup featuring pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade, each a celebrated recording artist and bandleader in his own right. The group’s uncanny chemistry was well documented on 2002’s acclaimed Footprints Live! Shorter followed in 2003 with the ambitious Alegria, an expanded vision for large ensemble which earned him a Grammy Award. In 2005, Shorter released the live Beyond the Sound Barrier which earned him another Grammy Award. “It’s the same mission... fighting the good fight,” he said. “It’s making a statement about what life is, really. And I’m going to end the line with it.”

Show less

Miles In France 1963 & 1964: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8

by Doug Collette
November 8, 2024

At the very same time Beatlemania was slowly but surely beginning to engulf the globe, Miles Davis was inexorably proceeding toward what was the most adventurous music of his career. Miles In France -The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 captures a group of musicians led by “The Man with the Horn" on the threshold of forming what is referred to as his second great quintet, then actually coalescing into that stellar outfit. And the drama within that designation rapidly ...

Radio & Podcasts

Four Brand New Wayne Shorter Covers, Uk Spiritual Jazz And More!

by Andy Crowther
November 1, 2024

So much incredible new music around at the moment, so this month it's all new tracks including no less than four Wayne Shorter covers, spiritual jazz leanings from the UK and a brilliant version of “Puttin' On The Ritz" from Martin Schack and friends. Playlist Ronald Snijders “Ode To Wayne Shorter" from Penta (Night Dreamer) 00:00 Michael Mayo “Speak No Evil" from Fly (Mack Avenue) 07:59 Fernando Huergo Big Band “Deluge" from Relentless (Whaling City Sound) 09:53 Simon ...

Radio & Podcasts

Wayne Shorter, Samara Joy, Barker/Irabagon/Parker, Tom Johnson Jazz Orchestra

by Cheryl K.
October 1, 2024

During this week's two-hour program of Jazz and improvised music--saxophonist Wayne Shorter; vocalist Samara Joy; Meva's Journal; trombonist Ryan Keberle; drummer Gerald Cleaver; keyboardist, composer and bandleader Tom Johnson; and The Impanemas. Playlist Wayne Shorter “Zero Gravity to the 15th Dimension" from Celebration, Vol. 1 (Blue Note) 11:42 Sara Serpa “Mercy and Caprice" from Recognition: Music for a Silent Film (Biophilia) 3:39 Michael Mayo “Frenzy" from Fly (Mack Avenue) 2:35 Samara Joy “Autumn Nocturne" from Portrait (Verve) 3:46 ...

Radio & Podcasts

New ECM Releases, Shorter Live, And More

by Bob Osborne
September 12, 2024

ECM records continue to release an eclectic range of remarkable music which transcends narrow genre classifications and offers the listener the chance to explore new sounds and experiences. Four excellent new releases from that label are featured on this episode. In addition there is a fascinating and varied mix of new releases yet again proving that Jazz is a broad church. I close the show with an excellent live recording from the legendary Wayne Shorter from the first in a ...

Album Review

Wayne Shorter: Celebration Volume 1

Read "Celebration Volume 1" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
September 7, 2024

Wayne Shorter never rested on his or anyone's laurels. So when at the start of this perilous century he convened his great, late-stage quartet with pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci, and drummer Brian Blade it wasn't to take the bandstand and placate audience and skeptics with greatest hits or refurbished takes on old standards. It was to create new and now again, just as he had with Art Blakey (1959-19630), Miles Davis (1964-1970), and Weather Report (1971-1986). In Shorter's expansionist ...

Building a Jazz Library

Wayne Shorter: The Final Mission

by Chris May
September 3, 2024

Every good story has a beginning, a middle and an end. Depending on how one figures it, Wayne Shorter's recording history has upwards of half a dozen important chapters. They tell a tale of superheroes, of monsters and demons and, ultimately, of the sight of a new dawn. Just three of the chapters cover the story's beginning, middle and end. The first concerns Shorter's own-name Blue Note albums of the middle to late 1960s; the middle one his years with ...

Radio & Podcasts

Classic Episode Flashback - The Saxophone Solo in Pop

by Patrick Burnette
August 29, 2024

Those crazy hazy lazy days of summer got us in their thrall and scheduling has been tough, so please enjoy this flashback to episode 81: Mike and Pat discuss “Walk on the Wild Side," “Shine On You Crazy Diamond," “Aja," “Waiting on a Friend," “Baker Street," “Just the Way You Are," “Logical Song," “Old and Wise," “Still Crazy After All These Years," “Man Eater," “Modern Love," “Your Latest Trick," “Brass Monkey," “Edge of Glory," “Get It Right," “Talk Dirty to ...

Performance / Tour

April 18: New England Conservatory Jazz Orchestra Presents 'High Life: The Music Of Wayne Shorter'

Source: Braithwaite & Katz Communications
April 12, 2024

Legendary jazz composer and saxophonist Wayne Shorter, who passed away on March 2, 2023, left a monumental artistic legacy. The NEC Jazz Orchestra pays tribute to Shorter with High Life: The Music of Wayne Shorter, the orchestra’s final concert of the season, at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 18 in NEC’s Jordan Hall, 290 Huntington Avenue, Boston. Special guest Carl Atkins, founding director of NEC’s Afro-American Studies and Jazz Departments, and NEC Jazz Studies Co-Chair Ken Schaphorst lead the orchestra ...
read more

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Wayne Shorter

Source: Michael Ricci
August 25, 2023

All About Jazz is celebrating Wayne Shorter's birthday today!

Performance / Tour

Manhattan's Smoke Jazz Club Announces May Line-Up Including Wayne Shorter Tribute Concert, George Coleman Jr, Album Release, And More

Source: AMT Public Relations
March 31, 2023

Rated the #1 Jazz Club in New York City (Secret NYC), Smoke Jazz Club begins the month of May with a heartfelt homage to the great, intrepid saxophonist Wayne Shorter. For one-night only May 3, today’s top artists celebrate the music and legacy of Shorter “who shaped the color and contour of modern jazz as one of its most intensely admired composers (The New York Times). The month continues with two leading female vocalists leading their respective quintets: Paula West ...
read more

Video / DVD

Wayne Shorter in Nine Video Clips

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
March 5, 2023

Wayne Shorter (1933-2023), when paired with other great jazz artists, was a tonic. Whether it was with trumpeters Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan or, later, Miles Davis, Shorter's saxophone added a dimension that was commanding and haunting. You felt you had a window into the artist's soul when Shorter played. Shorter was in three major groups that changed jazz. The first was Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, from 1959 to 1963, the most acclaimed hard-bop ensemble widely recognized and ...
read more

Recording

Backgrounder: Wayne Shorter's JuJu

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
March 4, 2023

Wayne Shorter, a saxophonist and composer whose influence on post-war jazz and jazz musicians rivaled that of Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane, died March 2. He was 89. My favorite Shorter album is JuJu. Recorded in 1964 for Blue Note and released in July 1965, the album featured all original songs by Shorter and included pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Reggie Workman and drummer Elvin Jones—a rhythm section that had worked regularly with John Coltrane. The soul and power of Shorter's ...
read more