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Impressions of Zero Gravity
by AAJ Staff
We published Peter Jones's review of Zero Gravity the other week, but other staffers wanted to share their thoughts on the Wayne Shorter documentary, so we collected them and presented them here. Ellen Johnson Zero Gravity, the documentary chronicling the life and music of jazz icon Wayne Shorter, surpasses the boundaries of conventional biographical films. It explores the mystical and philosophical dimensions that shaped Shorter's extraordinary journey. His fusion of spiritual beliefs with an insatiable curiosity about the ...
Continue ReadingCelebrating Citizen Wayne Shorter And New Releases
by Bob Osborne
There are all new releases on this show, with a great compilation of Wayne Shorter's music from the Posi-Tone label. In addition there are new albums from Francisco Mela & Jonathan Reisin, Ivo Perelman & Nate Wooley, Todd Mosby, Hutchinson Andrew Trio, Itamar Borochov, Elina Duni with Rob Luft plus Matthieu Michel & Fred Thomas, Matt Rollings Trio, Nevaris, The Man From Atlantis, Sara Serpa & Andre Matos, Daniel Carter with Adriana Camacho & Federico Ughi, Camila Nebbia, Josh Cole, ...
Continue ReadingLeaving Planet Earth: Amazon's Wayne Shorter Documentary Zero Gravity
by Peter Jones
Wayne Shorter: Zero Gravity Director: Dorsay Alavi 2023 Wayne Shorter was brought up in the belief that he could achieve anything he wanted to: there should be no barriers to his ambition. This three-part documentary--a true labor of love from director Dorsay Alavi--shows us that Shorter was far more than a musician. In the first part (or portal), we see Shorter and his brother Alan, portrayed in black and white by a pair of ...
Continue ReadingShut Up, He Explained: On Talking Heads In Jazz Flicks
by Con Chapman
As an avid watcher of jazz documentaries, my thoughts on the genre may be summed up by the words of two of my favorite writers, Raymond Carver and Ring Lardner. Carver named his first short story collection “Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?--the words are spoken by a character named Ralph to his wife Marian, who has confessed to cheating on him in the story of the same name. From Jazz by Ken Burns and Geoffrey Ward to ...
Continue ReadingWayne Shorter: An Essential Top Ten Albums
by Chris May
At the start of September 2021, trumpeter Terence Blanchard released Absence (Blue Note), dedicated to saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter, who for health reasons had recently been obliged to retire from performing, at least temporarily. Some people celebrating their eighty-eighth birthday, as Shorter did the previous month, might not welcome being the dedicatee of an album with such a title. They might consider a more appropriate choice of words to be Presence or even I'm Feeling Fine Thanks For Asking. ...
Continue ReadingWayne Shorter Quartet: Aung San Suu Kyi
by Ian Patterson
Any day is a good day to listen to Wayne Shorter. “Aung San Suu Kyi," from the 2003 Montreal Jazz Festival, captures Shorter's celebrated quartet of Danilo Perez, Brian Blade and John Patitucci in scintillating form. From its birth in 2000 until Shorter's retirement from the stage in 2018, this line-up took improvised small ensemble playing to rarefied heights. A concert would often begin with an uninterrupted hour of four-way improvised dialogue. By turn susurrus, flowing and volatile, it was ...
Continue ReadingA Supreme Love
by Duncan Heining
Alan Skidmore is one of the finest saxophonists to come out of the United Kingdom, Europe or indeed anywhere. In fact, it was hearing Skidmore's tenor solo on “Have You Heard?" from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton (Decca, 1966) that encouraged a young Michael Brecker to take up the instrument. Skidmore had also served his apprenticeship with blues singer Alexis Kornerin the sixties and by the end of the decade was equally well-versed in the blues and in the ...
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