Wayne Shorter, one of the most admired and singular American jazz composers and saxophonists of the modern era has died at 89.
After brief runs with the Horace Silver Quintet and the Maynard Ferguson big band, Shorter’s career began in earnest in 1959 when he joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, a four-year tenure that found him graduating to musical director for the group while blossoming into a multi-faceted composer and master of the driving, hard bop sound.
He then moved on to a fruitful six-year run with jazz icon Miles Davis, first in his Quintet, where Shorter was able to stretch his musical wings and add layers to his already formidable talents, including on Davis’ landmark 1969 jazz fusion albums In a Silent Way and B****** Brew.
A master on the tenor saxophone, by the time Shorter left the Davis orbit he had moved on to playing soprano sax in the 1970s and 80s with keyboardist Joe Zawinul, bassist Miroslav Vitous, percussionist Airto Moreira and drummer Alphonse Mouzon in the fusion supergroup Weather Report; other members of the group of the years included genre-defining jazz bassist Jaco Pastorious, beloved session drummers Steve Gadd and Omar Hakim and Sly and the Family Stone drummer Greg Errico.
In addition to his stints in those bands, Shorter also collaborated with folk icon Joni Mitchell on 10 albums, Brazilian composer/singer Milton Nascimento, fellow former Davis bandmember Carlos Santana (on 1980’s The Swing of Delight) and, in perhaps his most high-profile non-jazz collab, he played the extended solo on the title track to Steely Dan’s 1977 Aja album.
A Remark You Made - Weather Report
Aja - Steely Dan
:'( :'(
Topic: In Memorial (Celebs that have passed) (Read 59871 times)