The veteran sax man and his combo treat a Disney Hall audience to an improvisational tour de force. Miriam Adam, the clarinetist for Grammy-winning quintet Imani Winds, sounded almost apologetic as she back-introduced the ensemble's first song in its opening set for Wayne Shorter, an evocative, dramatic piece from Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos.
Clad in a candy-colored gown, she said something along the lines of how Wednesday night's Disney Hall audience wasn't expecting classical woodwind music to lead the way for one of the most famed saxophonists and composers jazz has ever known.
Adam needn't have worried. Any hint of a genre-biased mentality from this crowd would've betrayed what Shorter has accomplished in a nearly 50-year career, one that's certainly shown a predilection for exploring stylistic intersections.
Closing a brief tour belatedly celebrating his 75th birthday, Shorter billed the evening as one heavy on improvisation, and what followed certainly tested anyone who had not remained in contact with Shorter's long recording arc.
Perhaps best known among casual fans as an integral part of Miles Davis' classic mid-'60s quintet or one of the co-leaders of '70s fusion standard-bearers Weather Report, this was not an evening dedicated to faithful readings of hits or any other perfunctory legacy-mining. This was a show built to showcase Shorter as a still-active, still-engaging artist, one who can still lead his charges -- and an audience -- on a musical search.
Backing him was his regular combo since 2000, one possessed of a near-telepathic sense of interplay that circled Shorter's complex, shape-shifting compositions with a deft sense of exploring the unknown, even amid piles of sheet music that formed a loose anchor to their efforts.
Pianist Danilo Perez was literally in Shorter's hip pocket most of the evening, with the black-clad horn player tucked into the curve of his grand piano.
Clad in a candy-colored gown, she said something along the lines of how Wednesday night's Disney Hall audience wasn't expecting classical woodwind music to lead the way for one of the most famed saxophonists and composers jazz has ever known.
Adam needn't have worried. Any hint of a genre-biased mentality from this crowd would've betrayed what Shorter has accomplished in a nearly 50-year career, one that's certainly shown a predilection for exploring stylistic intersections.
Closing a brief tour belatedly celebrating his 75th birthday, Shorter billed the evening as one heavy on improvisation, and what followed certainly tested anyone who had not remained in contact with Shorter's long recording arc.
Perhaps best known among casual fans as an integral part of Miles Davis' classic mid-'60s quintet or one of the co-leaders of '70s fusion standard-bearers Weather Report, this was not an evening dedicated to faithful readings of hits or any other perfunctory legacy-mining. This was a show built to showcase Shorter as a still-active, still-engaging artist, one who can still lead his charges -- and an audience -- on a musical search.
Backing him was his regular combo since 2000, one possessed of a near-telepathic sense of interplay that circled Shorter's complex, shape-shifting compositions with a deft sense of exploring the unknown, even amid piles of sheet music that formed a loose anchor to their efforts.
Pianist Danilo Perez was literally in Shorter's hip pocket most of the evening, with the black-clad horn player tucked into the curve of his grand piano.
