Icon: Wayne Shorter
Saxophonist Wayne Shorter, who turned 80 last month, is often and accurately referred to as the greatest living composer in jazz. But that’s too stuffy a description for who he is and what he does. As he put it to NPR earlier this year, “For me, the word ‘jazz’ means ‘I dare you.’ The effort to break out of something is worth more than getting an A in syncopation.”
The daredevilry of Shorter’s jazz is utterly compelling and yet easily underrated, because even as he “breaks out of something” he thoroughly inhabits it. He was the most influential composer and cohort for two of the greatest bandleaders in jazz — Art Blakey and Miles Davis — because he was able to understand and accommodate what they wanted and needed and leveraged their genius to help stimulate and innovate his own. That’s why Blakey honored Shorter with the title of musical director for his classic hard-bop finishing school, the Jazz Messengers. It is why Davis referred to Shorter as “intellectual musical catalyst” for the quintet many regard as the finest of the trumpeter’s storied career.
Even as Shorter was fundamentally altering the shape of two iconic bands, he was rolling out his own landmark albums during his incredibly fertile decade of the 1960s. As the ’70s arrived, the fusion jazz he helped pioneer with Miles led to his co-founding of Weather Report, arguably the most renowned fusion band of all time. But as the popularity of Weather Report reached new heights, Shorter’s interest in other areas and aspects of his life, especially his study of Buddhism, decreased his absorption in music. For nearly a quarter-century, his musical projects became more fragmented, and his involvement in them was frequently subsidiary.
A new century — or, more specifically, a 2000 performance at the Monterey Jazz Festival — resurrected Shorter’s “I dare you” approach to jazz. The festival gig inaugurated the Wayne Shorter Quartet, an ensemble that became the intellectual musical catalyst for Shorter as both a composer and improviser. Over the past decade, the telepathy among the band members has become reminiscent of what Shorter had with Miles, creating a resplendent twilight to his career. The year of his 80th birthday may culminate in his latest album, Without a Net, being named the best jazz record of 2013.
The Auspicious Start
-
This is no casual introduction or callow debut. First of all, the quintet is top-notch: Beside Shorter on the front line, Lee Morgan was regarded as the leading hard-bop trumpeter following the recent death of Clifford Brown, and pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Jimmy Cobb were the ongoing rhythm section for Miles Davis. Yet Shorter commands the sessions, composing all but one of the six songs and taking the... lead solo on every track. While the compositions lack the sophistication of his later material, they already could be harmonically surprising ("Pug Nose") or imbued with catchy melodies well-suited for improvisations ("Down in the Depths"). It's true that Shorter's early tenor work was indebted to the skids and effusions of John Coltrane (check his solo on the lone cover tune, "Mack the Knife"), but his tone is robust with a keening edge, and from the beginning his solos unveiled new facets of his compositions.
more »
On the same day in November 1959 that Shorter finished recording this disc, he (and Morgan) went across the river to New Jersey to cut his first studio sessions as a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, a post he would hold for five years.
Hard Bop with Blakey
-
Blue Note label head Alfred Lion inexplicably decided to wait nine years to release this underrated gem from the Blakey catalog. Perhaps Roots & Herbs was the victim of the Messengers' prolific creativity — with Shorter writing furiously, they churned out five studio albums of mostly original material in 1961 alone. Or maybe Lion noticed that Roots & Herbs bore the distinctive musical stamp of Shorter, who wrote all six tunes, more... than Blakey. Who else could or would write a song entitled "Ping Pong" that actually had the brittle tone and predictable still yet variegated back-and-forth rhythms of a ping pong game? Or "Look at the Birdie," based on the Woody Woodpecker cartoon theme? Throw in "United" a rousing waltz that strangely but logically morphs into an Afro-Cuban workout for Blakey, and the slightly off-kilter blues of "The Back Sliders," with its pause in the chorus. And for the traditionalists, there is the driving hard bop of the title track, and some spirited exchanges between Shorter and Morgan (who plays with high-decibel swagger for most of the disc) on "Master Mind."
more » -
If anyone casts aspersions on Wayne Shorter's magnificence as a tenor saxophonist, simply play them his title track to Free For All. For more than three minutes, he wails like a man possessed, with molten extended notes erupting into rapid-fire modulations, as if he is speaking in tongues. Whoops of joy can be heard in the studio, as Blakey mightily tries to keep the whole enterprise from busting loose. Trumpeter Freddie Hubbard... (in his last disc with the Messengers) is a kindred spirit blowing mightily after Shorter not only on the title tune but on Shorter's ostensibly soul-jazz number, "Hammer Head," and on "The Core," Hubbard's tribute to the Congress Of Racial Equality. It was February of 1964, and Shorter was no longer following 'Trane, but abreast of him, and Albert Ayler and Archie Shepp, in a rapturous swoop and cry that would ignite the "free jazz" movement that Shorter, aside from this wicked flash, never joined. In two months he would take Coltrane's rhythm section and begin an incredible run of 11 albums under his own name for Blue Note over a six-year period. And by the end of 1964, he had left Blakey to become a cornerstone in Miles Davis's second classic quartet.
more »
A Vein from the Motherload
-
Wayne Shorter's 11-record run on Blue Note from Night Dreamer in 1964 to Odyssey of Iska in 1970 by itself features enough creative consistency and stylistic evolution to comprise a satisfying career, and any single disc is only going to skim its surface. That said, Best of makes for a well-chosen primer of this crucial period, more efficient with essential Shorter than The Classic Blue Note Recordings, which uses one... of its two discs on Shorter's work as guest or sideman, and doesn't rectify Best of's biggest flaw, which is omitting anything from the adventurous The All Seeing Eye. Shorter's Blue Note splurge chronicles a time when he grew from a sophisticated hard-bopper and recovering Coltrane acolyte into a master of impressionism, a godfather of fusion and a composer increasingly able to make the familiar sound mysterious, and vice versa.
more »
The Best of the ’60s Blue Notes
-
Speak No Evil is where Wayne Shorter most noticeably glided into the deep end of the compositional pool, moving further away from straight-ahead bop to embrace the broader structures, deceptively accessible complexity and languid lyricism that would mark much of his writing for Miles Davis, his subsequent Blue Note discs and Weather Report. But rather than point out which songs are modal, in minor key, edged with chromatic counterpoint, or based on... Sibelius's "Valse Triste," let's just say that the music is beautiful and beguiling. Having recently joined Miles, Shorter recruited bassist Ron Carter and pianist Herbie Hancock from that quintet to join with trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and drummer Elvin Jones in a truly all-star ensemble. Hancock in particular is a perfect foil in helping Shorter maintain the delicate tension in the dovetailing elements of turmoil and serenity at the heart of so many of the composer's best songs.
more »
Teaming with Miles: The Second Classic Quintet
-
An anecdote from Michelle Mercer's informative book about Wayne Shorter, Footprints, reveals that just before a week-long engagement at Chicago's Plugged Nickel nightclub in December, 1965, the members of Miles Davis's group felt the quintet was becoming too stale and decided to play "anti-music," meaning they would consistently deliver the least predictable phrase or response. Miles, who wasn't informed of this radical plan, quickly adjusted and embraced it, resulting in a perpetually... fascinating on-the-spot deconstruction and rebuilding of his classic catalog. Significantly, he would mostly eschew standards and play almost exclusively original material the rest of his career.
more »
Nobody thrived in the high-wire environment of the Plugged Nickel, where the structure depended on how well you listened and creatively reacted, better than Shorter, whose solos are nearly always the unifying apex of the song. Of special note is his work on "Yesterdays," where he builds an incredibly swinging solo up from shards of notes; and "So What" and "Stella by Starlight," which have their familiar melodies juggled and tossed into a new order like dice in the hand of a gambler at the craps table. The success of the Plugged Nickel experiment had a profound effect on Miles moving forward, as he and various bands would play almost exclusively original material for the rest of his career. -
Recorded 10 months after the Plugged Nickel gigs, Miles Smiles showcases the leader's second classic quintet wholly comfortable in their new identity, with the rhythm section pushing and questing, Miles compellingly askance with his solos, and Wayne Shorter brilliantly pointing out avenues and trap doors to wend through the maze. The unique combination of abstraction and logic in Shorter's compositions are crucial to the enterprise, highlighted by the definitive version of "Footprints,"... unquestionably his most renowned piece. But there is also durable pleasure in "Orbits," which seems to start abruptly in mid-sentence, pause, and circle back to the melody; and "Delores," which had an open-ended structure that invited the bass and drums into the front line.
more »
Shorter Fusion
-
Diehard fans of Wayne Shorter will always wonder why he took a subsidiary role to keyboardist Joe Zawinul — and stayed there for more than a decade — in his supposed co-leadership of Weather Report. His association with Miles (from Miles Smiles through Bitches Brew) and his last few Blue Note discs were central to the development of fusion, yet his influence on the preeminent fusion group of the 1970s seemed to... wane as the band evolved during the genre's creative and commercial heyday. Shorter himself has said that he was more focused on deepening his awareness of Buddhism during this time. Even so, it is impossible to imagine Weather Report without the exquisite timing and curvature of Shorter's bleating notes on soprano saxophone (which he adopted to better cut through the clutter amid the larger electronic bands Miles was deploying). He contributed more than a dozen jewels to the Weather Report catalog over the years and provided an ethereal counterbalance to Zawinul's proclivity for funk and "world music." His impact is most evident on the group's eponymous debut, from his spellbinding duet composition and performance with Zawinul ("Milky Way") to open the collection, and his sophisticated, serpentine closing song, "Eurydice."
more »
The Comeback
-
When Footprints Live! was released in 2002, it was a hopeful sign that Wayne Shorter was ready to re-immerse himself in music. A year later, Alegria confirmed it in stunning fashion. The first Shorter-led all-acoustic collection since 1967, it is bracketed by two strong tracks from what is now his longstanding quartet with pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Pattitucci and drummer Brian Blade. Elsewhere he utilizes an all-star cast that includes Brad... Mehldau, Chris Potter, Jeremy Pelt and a wind and brass section for arrangements of classical, traditional folk and his own vintage jazz pieces. But be it his robust tenor and soprano sax playing on the Latin jazz-rock of the opener, "Sacajawea," or the beguiling cello ensemble arrangement set against his tenor and Alex Acuna's percussion on "Bachianas Brasileiras No.5" by Villa-Lobos, it was clear for all to hear throughout Alegria — awarded two Grammy Awards in 2003 — that Wayne Shorter was back.
more »
The Capstone
-
Shorter is such a distinctive and advanced composer that his powers in the area that is the most essential element of jazz — spontaneous improvisation — are too often overlooked. But on Without a Net, the saxophonist who strove mightily to break loose from Blakey's martial beat on Free For All and was most comfortable with the "anti-music" deconstruction of standards during Miles Davis's stint at the Plugged Nickel, now was ensconced... in a quartet of kindred spirits who were in sync and intrepid enough let the improvisations unfurl. The extraordinary collective empathy on display during these eight Shorter originals and one obscure movie theme ("Flying Down to Rio," filmed the year Shorter was born) seems telepathic. But in actuality it is four fearless and intensely alert musicians who have absorbed Shorter's idiosyncratic music and sensibility for more than a decade now, playing jazz the way Shorter defines it. They are daring each other to break out of something, while paradoxically creating an unbreakable bond of blissful cohesion. Not bad for an octogenarian.
more »
