Wayne Shorter

The saxophonist, who died on Thursday at 89, redefined jazz composition by embracing the unknown. Listen to nine of his recordings with Miles Davis, ...

“Endangered Species” is an [’80s-era gem](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3qXILIfPuw) from Shorter’s fusion catalog, written at the tail end of his time with Weather Report, built on the tonal toggling and crooked-angle grooves that he’d often worked out with Weather Report, but released on his 1985 solo album, “Atlantis.” In 2012 Spalding [set it to words](https://genius.com/Esperanza-spalding-endangered-species-lyrics) and did her own version. Their performance together in Detroit was released last year, and Shorter’s gusty, restrained solo on “Endangered Species” won him the 12th — and final — Grammy in an immortal career. “How do you rehearse the unknown?” [he asked](https://www.npr.org/2013/02/02/170882668/wayne-shorter-on-jazz-how-do-you-rehearse-the-unknown). Alongside the drummer Brian Blade, the bassist John Patitucci and the pianist Danilo Pérez, Shorter leans heavily on the soprano saxophone (another nod to Coltrane’s influence), and on “Adventures Aboard the Golden Mean” he uses the band at once like a meditative space and a wild loom, spinning small, motif-like themes until they are frayed and stretched and fully unspooled. “Palladium” is one of the group’s most fun tunes; just when you think it’s resolving, it keeps flying on, transposing up a key and ultimately finishing on a cliffhanger. The emotion of this piece, as in so many of Shorter’s tunes, is both stark and shrouded: Is it mournful? “House of Jade” is the gentlest of the LP’s six Shorter originals, but Jones’s ever-propulsive beat and Workman’s staunch bass playing vest Shorter’s slow, elliptical melody with heavy, grinding force. With Shorter’s passing, Blanchard becomes a candidate to assume that mantle of “greatest living jazz composer.” But at “Fire,” it was clearer than ever that he wouldn’t have gotten there without the influence of Shorter; it was in the way his harmonies spread their wings out wide, hang gliding from beginning to end, asking you to ride along — daring you. “Iphigenia” premiered in late 2021, to a mix of rapturous raves and quizzical responses — both of which must have delighted Shorter. “To me, the definition of faith is to fear nothing.” Blakey, for one, famously said that jazz “washes away the dust of everyday life.” Davis reminded us that it’s about “the notes you don’t play.” In the early ’70s, partly responding to the direction Davis’s music was taking, jazz steered toward a marriage with rock and funk.

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.

Wayne Shorter, a Grammy-winning saxophonist and composer who helped shaped the sound of contemporary jazz, has died, according to his publicist.

In the ’70s and ‘80s, Shorter played with various jazz bands and musicians. In 1998, Shorter was also featured on jazz pianist Herbie Hancock’s “Gershwin World” album. Shorter received an honorary doctorate award from NYU in 2010 during the university’s commencement at Yankee Stadium. In 1964, he was recruited by legendary jazz trumpeter Miles Davis to join Davis’s Second Great Quintet band, with which he played until 1970. He served for two years, per the artist’s biography on [Bluenote.com](https://www.bluenote.com/artist/wayne-shorter/). Shorter was nominated for 23 Grammy Awards during his career and won 12 times.

His complex harmonies and lyrical melodies made him one of the most influential saxophonists of the past half-century.

Mr. In 1999, Mr. Although regarded throughout his career as a nurturer more than a leader, Mr. They were flying to Rome to meet Mr. In addition to his wife, survivors include a daughter from his first marriage, Miyako; a stepdaughter he adopted, Mariana; and a grandson. Shorter “the intellectual musical catalyst” for the quintet on such 1960s Columbia albums as “ESP,” “Miles Smiles” and “Sorcerer.” At the same time, Mr. In July 1959, while playing with trumpeter Maynard Ferguson’s big band at the Newport Jazz Festival, Mr. Poet, playwright and music critic Amiri Baraka, who grew up in Newark at the same time, recalled in a 1959 article for the short-lived magazine Jazz Review, “Introducing Wayne Shorter,” that Mr. “He liked Trane and maybe me a little, but Wayne was an innovative guy himself, and that would come out in the way he put things together.” Generations of musicians have included Mr. [Greg Tate](https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2021/12/08/greg-tate-dies/?itid=lk_inline_manual_8) once wrote that Mr. He was a member of the Miles Davis Quintet in the 1960s and was a featured performer on Davis’s groundbreaking recordings that helped define jazz-rock fusion, a style he continued to cultivate as a co-founder of Weather Report with pianist Joe Zawinul.

Wayne Shorter, the legendary, Grammy-winning saxophonist who collaborated with Miles Davis and Joni Mitchell, has died at the age of 89.

In addition to his own work as bandleader and sideman, Shorter was an in-demand session musician and a favorite of Mitchell, who enlisted the saxophonist for all 10 studio albums she released between 1977 and 2002, including 1979’s jazz-indebted Mingus. After a half-decade stint with Blakey, Shorter released his debut as bandleader in 1959, featuring three musicians — bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Jimmy Cobb, and pianist Wynton Kelly — who just months earlier formed the backbone of Davis’ Kind of Blue. After exploring jazz fusion alongside Davis in the late Sixties, Shorter formed Weather Report with keyboardist Joe Zawinul in 1970, with that collective further expanding the subgenre’s sound by funneling jazz through funk and world music influences. 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. “His music possessed a spirit that came from somewhere way, way beyond and made this world a much better place. The venerated musician died Thursday morning, March 2, in Los Angeles, Shorter’s rep confirmed to Rolling Stone.

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

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Wayne Shorter, an influential jazz innovator whose lyrical, complex jazz compositions and pioneering saxophone playing sounded through ...

In 2015 he was given a lifetime achievement Grammy. I miss being around him and his special Wayne-isms but I carry his spirit within my heart always.” Herbie Hancock once said of Shorter in Miles Davis’s Second Great Quintet: “The master writer to me, in that group, was Wayne Shorter. 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’. Wayne was one of the few people who brought music to Miles that didn’t get changed.” It called him a gentle spirit who was “always inquisitive and constantly exploring.”

Shorter, a tenor saxophonist, was a foundational 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 Davis's Second Great Quintet: "The master writer to me, in that group, was Wayne Shorter. Over the next eight decades, Shorter's wide-spanning collaborations would include co-founding the '70s fusion band Weather Report, some 10 album appearances with Joni Mitchell and further explorations with Carlos Santana and Steely Dan.

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. In a statement released by Shorter's publicist Alisse Kinglsey, Hancock, described as Shorter's "closest friend for more than six decades," wrote, "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. 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.

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

The 12-time Grammy-winning saxophonist and composer joined the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music faculty in 2012.

“As a community, we feel the loss of an irreplaceable colleague, a musical visionary and devoted teacher.” [Jonathan Pinson,](https://music.calarts.edu/specializations/jazz/faculty/jonathan-pinson) a member of the Hancock Institute’s 2014 class who now is a faculty member at CalArts. He was a hero to them musically and personally.” “Wayne was a lighthouse for what it could mean to be human — to feel, listen, create and live.” “Wayne taught every class that has come through the Herbie Hancock Institute — since before the partnership with UCLA,” said Daniel Seeff, the institute’s West Coast director. It was there that he connected with pianist Herbie Hancock, beginning a musical journey that would venture far and wide.

Wayne Shorter whose lyrical, complex jazz compositions and pioneering saxophone playing sounded through more than half a century of music has died.

The 12-time Grammy award winner is credited with shaping much of 20th century jazz music.

Wayne Shorter was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1933, and initially played the clarinet at age 15. He also played with the Rolling Stones that year on their album Brides to Babylon. 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.