Wayne Shorter (1933-2023)

Forty-three albums from the late genius composer and saxophonist.

Until yesterday, when he passed away at 89, Wayne Shorter had been the most significant living genius in jazz for at least as long as I’ve been listening. His playing and compositions were the unmistakable voice for three legendary and pivotal bands—Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers (1960-64), the Miles Davis Quintet (64-70), and Weather Report (70-86)—which broke from the jazz ghetto and received wide acclaim from the listening public.

Even as the first two groups had had long-established international  reputations by the time Wayne arrived, both were teleported into his sound world, and it’s inconceivable to think of the music they’d have made without him. Wayne’s contributions to the Blakey and Davis books weren’t just tunes on which soloists could blow; they were compositional jewels. 

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As a saxophonist, Wayne’s sound didn’t immediately shock or grab listeners as much as some of his contemporaries did. It’s fun to hear the blistering early tenor solos with Blakey—especially in Paris and Tokyo ‘61, when paired with Lee Morgan—to hear his unique take on Coltrane’s “sheets of sound.” Possibly under the influence of his Buddhist practice, the maximalism of those solos would, by the time of his Blue Note recordings and his time with Davis, undergo heavy pruning and self-editing in a quest to find his authentic voice. Leaving more space in his solos and toying with repetitive figures gave his compositions additional mystery. 

I’ve long believed that his albums with Blakey and Davis should be considered Shorter records just as much as they belong to their leaders. Alongside Wayne’s classic Blue Note albums—Night Dreamer, Juju, Speak No Evil, Adam’s Apple, The All-Seeing Eye, Schizophrenia, Etcetera, The Soothsayer—we must add The Big Beat, For Someone in Love, The Witch Doctor, The Freedom Rider, Night in Tunisia, Indestructible, Africaine, Roots and Herbs, Three Blind Mice vols. 1 and 2, Mosaic, Buhaina’s Delight, Ugetsu, Caravan, and Free For All (with Blakey) as well as ESP, Miles Smiles, Sorcerer, Nefertiti, Water Babies, Miles in the Sky, as well as the live recordings in Berlin, the Plugged Nickel and Europe ‘67 (with Davis). Even outside these projects, Shorter’s contributions to the era’s greatest work appears on Freddie Hubbard’s Ready for Freddie, Lee Morgan’s The Gigolo and The Procrastinator, as well as Bobby Timmons’ Soul Man. Considering this list of titles is dizzying, and they constitute a staggering body of work never paralleled in modern jazz. And that’s only considering the 1960s.

Since then, he didn’t just make groundbreaking and immensely popular fusion records with Joe Zawinul and Jaco Pastorious in Weather Report. At the same time, he advanced the singer-with-obligato tradition from Lester Young, becoming an equal voice and a foil for the brilliant singer-songwriters Joni Mitchell (most notably on “Paprika Plains” and “The Sire of Sorrow”) and Milton Nascimento (the brilliant, genre-exploding Native Dancer and its companion, Milton’s self-titled 1976 album on A&M). The majesty of their records is inconceivable without Wayne’s often acid soprano sound. He joined Miles alumni and lifelong collaborator and friend Herbie Hancock in VSOP, creating something that shouldn’t work but did: arena jazz. 

Formed in 2000, his final band was heralded as a comeback, after seemingly aimless projects in 80s and 90s. Surrounded by young virtuosos, Shorter took chances like no other elder statesman would, performing truly Without a Net. Several live recordings–as well as the beautiful studio album, Alegria–didn’t so much find the saxophonist embracing the avant-garde, as the wags claimed; yes, while the music was more abstract and focused on improvisation, the results were vital Wayne Shorter.

The Shorter recording most people have heard is his blistering duet with drummer Steve Gadd on Steely Dan’s “Asia.” It’s great, but it doesn’t scratch the surface of his genius. 

RIP, maestro. 

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