Jazz Articles about Wayne Shorter

Lee Morgan: The Gigolo

by Chris May
February 18, 2006

Hard bop's baddest trumpeter, Lee Morgan, may never quite have topped his iconic '63 masterpiece, The Sidewinder, but he came pretty damn close on a couple of occasions. The Gigolo is one of them, and it's been reissued as part of the ongoing Rudy Van Gelder remaster series. The album's menacing, visceral vibe has never sounded more powerful or engaging.

With The Sidewinder ringing cash registers across the US and Europe, there was a temptation for Morgan and Blue Note ...

Wayne Shorter: Beyond the Sound Barrier

by Andrey Henkin
September 12, 2005

During the '60s, Wayne Shorter--as a leader, a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers or Miles Davis' quintet, or a sideman with musicians like Lee Morgan and Grachan Moncur III, was involved with many absolutely perfect studio recordings. It seems very natural, thereforre, that with his current quartet he would be interested in documenting the live aspect of jazz improvisation.Footprints Live!, the initial recording Shorter did with pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci, and drummer Brian Blade, was ...

Wayne Shorter: Footprints: The Life and Music of Wayne Shorter

by Riel Lazarus
July 2, 2005

Want a challenge? Try cramming nearly fifty years of music into a two-CD set. And if that isn't hard enough, try having it make the slightest lick of sense. Though hardly an enviable task, this is precisely what Columbia/Legacy has endeavored to do with Footprints: The Life and Music of Wayne Shorter. Compiled here is a brisk walk through the vast expanse of Shorter's career as pillar of modern jazz and consistently groundbreaking composer. Stops along the way ...

Wayne Shorter Quartet: Beyond the Sound Barrier

by John Kelman
June 10, 2005

When saxophonist Wayne Shorter put together his first all-acoustic group since the '60s for a 2001 tour and live recording, Footprints Live!, it was an important confirmation that even one of the most significant artists of the past six decades could (and, perhaps, should) have something new to say. That first recording--featuring pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci, and drummer Brian Blade--was as much about the thrill of discovery and new ways to look at famous Shorter compositions, including “Footprints" ...

Wayne Shorter: The Soothsayer

by Andrey Henkin
June 6, 2005

At over 70 years of age, with a career that began in 1959 and included celebrated stints with Art Blakey and Miles Davis, 12 albums for Blue Note during that label's most creative period, the founding of one of the more influential fusion groups and work with major jazz and pop musicians throughout the '80s, it is easy to bandy about terms like “living legend when describing Wayne Shorter. His music is among the first that aspiring jazz musicians play ...

Michel Petrucciani: Power of Three & The Manhattan Project

by John Kelman
April 30, 2005

When French pianist Michel Petrucciani finally succumbed, at the age of 37, to the debilitating illness that plagued him for his entire life -- osteogenensis imperfecta, an illness that stunted his growth and caused his bones to be so brittle that they were all too-easily broken -- the jazz world lost a player who, while contributing so much in such a short span of time, also had so much more to give. That he began playing professionally at the age ...

Wayne Shorter: Night Dreamer

by John Kelman
March 22, 2005

By the time he made this recording, a few short months before he was to join Miles Davis' groundbreaking second quintet, saxophonist Wayne Shorter had already earned a reputation as a player combining heady intellectualism with a more visceral approach as a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. He'd also released four records for the Vee-Jay label that demonstrated how, while he'd learned a great deal with Blakey, he was developing his own voice, albeit still in the hard bop ...