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Jazz Articles about Wayne Shorter
Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers: First Flight to Tokyo: The Lost 1961 Recordings
by Chris May
There is a saying in the opera world which, though innocuous on the face of it, damns a work before the overture has begun let alone after the fat lady sings. The saying, beloved of breathless publicists deaf to its implication, is that such and such an opera is “rarely performed." The reason it is rarely performed, of course, is because nine times out of ten it is a dud. When it comes to jazz albums the parallel ...
Continue ReadingThe Legacy of Wayne Shorter
by Russell Perry
Wayne Shorter began composing for the Jazz Messengers in 1959 and over the past 60 years has amassed perhaps the most significant catalog of jazz compositions of his time. Many of his, roughly, one hundred compositions are standards of the current repertoire. In this hour of Jazz at 100 Today!, we'll explore recent renditions of his classic tunes by today's working artists. Playlist Host Intro 0:00 Michael Musillami -Rich Syracuse duo “One By One" from Of The Night ...
Continue Reading50th Anniversary Blue Notes – August edition
by Marc Cohn
During last month's Blue Note anniversary show we ran out of time. So this week we catch up with a Hank Mobley session for Blue Note from July 31, 1970 (well, that date was 'almost-August' anyway), after opening the show with mostly twenty-first century music. Then, it's on to Grant Green, live in Newark and Wayne Shorter's last twentieth century Blue Note date (and a Weather Report track for icing). We've also got BN-25 from James P. Johnson in our ...
Continue ReadingJazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis: The Music of Wayne Shorter
by Chris M. Slawecki
As a saxophonist, founding member of Weather Report and member of Miles Davis' second great acoustic quintet, it won't be hard to find Wayne Shorter's name in the pages of modern jazz history. But the massive The Music of Wayne Shorter highlights a sometimes-overlooked element of Shorter's musicianship: His ability to compose, which has contributed “Footprints," “Nefertiti," “Speak No Evil" and other standards to the jazz canon. As bassist Christian McBride, a former member of Shorter's quartet, writes in the ...
Continue ReadingWeather Report - Zawinul, Shorter, Pastorius (1971 - 1976)
by Russell Perry
By 1970, Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul were recognized as two of the finest hard bop composers and players having contributed the full range of their talents to The Jazz Messengers and Miles Davis Quintet (in Shorter's case) and the Cannonball Adderley Quintet (in Zawinul's). Both contributed to Davis' Bitches Brew sessions and in 1971 formed the supergroup Weather Report, one of the most popular, influential and long-lived fusion bands. Playlist Host Intro 0:00 Weather Report “Eurydice" from ...
Continue ReadingSons of Miles – Shorter, Hancock, Williams (1964 - 1968)
by Russell Perry
During the five-year tenure of Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet (1963—1968), Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams were very active on their own projects, many of which included Ron Carter. Several of the resulting releases are classics of the period and laid the foundation for their significant careers after the Quintet broke up in 1968. The highly productive moonlighting of Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams in this hour of Jazz at 100. Playlist Host Intro ...
Continue ReadingSchool of Trane - Wayne Shorter, Archie Shepp, Charles Lloyd, Pharoah Sanders (1964 - 1969)
by Russell Perry
No tenor player cast a larger shadow over the 1960's than John Coltrane. Arguably, that time frame could be expanded to include all decades since, as well. Several contemporary tenor players who emerged as singular and important voices in the 1960s were specifically in his debt: his friend and colleague -Wayne Shorter, his protégé —Archie Shepp, his band mate—Pharoah Sanders, and his disciple—Charles Lloyd. Each in his own way, reflected Trane's characteristic tenor sound, his spirituality, his harmonic adventurism and ...
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