Wayne Shorter
August 25, 1933 – March 2, 2023
Not too many weeks go by without the sound of the great Wayne Shorter cascading through the ejazzlines offices.
Born in 1933 in Newark, New Jersey, Shorter in his 89 years had one of the most prolific, influential, eclectic, accomplished, successful-and longest-careers in the history of American music.
Getting started with Horace Silver and Maynard Ferguson, by the end of the 1950s he was a central member of one of the great Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers groups before becoming equally key to Miles Davis's historic Second Great Quintet. He stayed with Miles through the groundbreaking Bitches' Brew record, before being a founding member of fusion supergroup Weather Report.
That's quite a career right there.
He recorded and toured with the V. S. O. P. band that reunited the Second Great Quintet with Freddie Hubbard in place of Miles, also recorded quite a bit with Joni Mitchell, toured with Carlos Santana, and worked with younger musical figures ranging from Rachel Z to Brad Mehldau to Esperanza Spalding and many, many others. His long personal and musical relationship with fellow titan of jazz Herbie Hancock has been well documented.
For us, in addition to the Messengers and Second Quintet records, the core of the Shorter oeuvre is his mid-1960s string of Blue Note recordings with fellow post bop/hard bop giants Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, Curtis Fuller, Reggie Workman, and his cohorts from the Second Quintet: Herbie, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams. The run of sessions from 1964's Night Dreamer through 1967's Schizophrenia is an eight-album documentation of some of the greatest American music ever recorded.
As someone who grew up with all subgenres of rock first and foremost, the Eagles were among my favorite bands as a little kid. So I eagerly bought what would become Eagles drummer Don Henley's most successful record, 1989's The End of the Innocence. The first time I heard the title track, I was stunned by the soprano saxophone solo; 34 years later, if possible, it sounds even better. Like other jazz greats who transcend genre (think Phil Woods's solos on Billy Joel's Just the Way You Are and Steely Dan's Dr. Wu and Sonny Rollins's on the Rolling Stones' Waiting on a Friend for starters), Shorter immediately elevates the song from very good rock to another level entirely; the solo weaves through the changes in an ethereal "gorgeous and spiraling" way, as so aptly put by American Songwriter contributor Jim Beviglia. That session was probably just another afternoon for Mr. Shorter. And he laid down a soprano solo that is simply timeless and utterly brilliant.
Wayne Shorter will be remembered as a legendary saxophonist, composer, arranger, bandleader, and sideman; his career spanned 70 years. He amassed a shelf full of Grammys, and lifetime achievement awards, fellowships, honorary degrees, and so much more. Most of all, he left behind a recorded legacy of innovation, beauty, and majesty, and the incredible depth and diversity that is at the heart of all that is so magnificent about jazz.
