Jazz composer and saxophonist Wayne Shorter, a recipient of 11 Grammy Awards, a Lifetime Achievement Grammy, the Kennedy Center Honor, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz among many others, died Thursday, March 2, 2023.
He received commissions from the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO), Nashville and National Symphony Orchestras, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the La Jolla Music Society.
Shorter was born on August 25, 1933 in Newark, New Jersey. He studied at New York University and served in the U.S. Army. He spent brief periods in the Horace Silver quintet and the Maynard Ferguson big band before his first major association, with Art Blakey’s hard-bop Jazz Messengers. Miles Davis convinced Shorter to join his quintet in September 1964, thus completing the lineup of a group whose biggest impact would leapfrog a generation into the ’80s.
Staying with Miles until 1970, Shorter became the band’s most prolific composer at times, contributing tunes like “E.S.P.,” “Pinocchio,” “Nefertiti,” “Sanctuary,” “Footprints,” “Fall,” and the signature description of Miles, “Prince of Darkness.” Herbie Hancock said: “The master writer to me, in that group, was Wayne Shorter … Wayne was one of the few people who brought music to Miles that didn’t get changed.”
Following the release of Odyssey of Iska in 1970, Shorter formed Weather Report. The band produced recordings in diverse styles, with funk, bebop, Latin jazz, ethnic music, and futurism being the most prevalent denominators. After leaving Weather Report in 1986, Shorter continued to record and lead groups in jazz fusion styles.
In 2000, he formed the first permanent acoustic group under his name, a quartet with pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci, and drummer Brian Blade, playing his own compositions. Four albums of live recordings have been released: Footprints Live; Beyond the Sound Barrier; Without a Net; and Emanon, with the latter, in addition to live material, including Shorter’s quartet in a studio session with the 34-piece Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
Wayne Shorter’s works have been performed by many symphony orchestras, including: the Chicago Symphony, Detroit Symphony, National Polish Radio Symphonic Orchestra and Prague Philharmonic and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. He received commissions from the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO), Nashville and National Symphony Orchestras, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the La Jolla Music Society.
Shorter realized over 200 compositions and dozens of his works have become modern standards.
This article is an edited version or what appears in entirety here, Wayne Shorter’s Official Site.