March 6, 2023 at 5:30 p.m
In recent years, his sparingly used tones seemed to carry entire life stories within them. Wayne Shorter used to intonate the soprano and tenor saxophone melancholy, pregnant with meaning, but also detached, as if he were poetically painting over the spontaneous interactions of his fellow musicians with coherent and precisely timed acoustic brushstrokes.
One might experience Shorter above all in the context of his acoustic quartet, founded in 2001, which included three congenial comrades-in-arms with Danilo Perez (piano), John Patitucci (bass) and Brian Blade (drums), and which, as the culmination of the late phase, was rich in feats career can be seen.
Wayne Shorter, born in 1933 in Newark, New Jersey, became known in 1959 when he joined drummer Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Miles Davis courted the saxophonist on the recommendation of John Coltrane, but it was not until 1964 that Coltrane decided to accept the trumpeter’s offer. By 1969 Wayne Shorter – with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams – formed the line-up of the second “classic” Miles Davis Quintet, for which he wrote numerous compositions which later became classics: “Footprints” and “Nefertiti”. mentioned as examples. Shorter also released acclaimed albums under his own name for Blue Note, including Night Dreamer, JuJu and Speak No Evil (1964/65).
In 1970, Wayne Shorter formed the rock-jazz supergroup Weather Report with Joe Zawinul and Miroslav Vitous (who was soon ousted from the band), thanks to albums like “Sweetnighter”, “Heavy Weather” (which included the Zawinul hit “Birdland” ) and “8:30” became probably the most successful band of their genre and only disbanded in 1986. Shorter has also worked with singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell, Carlos Santana and repeatedly with pianist Herbie Hancock.
In addition, following the turn of the millennium, Wayne Shorter repeatedly composed for classical orchestras and thus let an old love blossom: he worked together with soprano Renée Fleming, who premiered his composition “Aurora” with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in 2010. On November 12, 2021, Shorter’s opera “Iphigenia” to a libretto by bassist Esperanza Spalding had its premiere in Boston. It was supposed to be the last spectacular act of a great career: After retiring from active music making in 2018 due to poor health and being dependent on a wheelchair as a result, Wayne Shorter is in a hospital on March 2, 2023 at the age of 89 died in Los Angeles. With him, the voice of one of the most influential saxophonists in modern jazz has fallen silent forever.