WAYNE SHORTER - Sue Auclair Promotions

WAYNE SHORTER
Wayne Shorter's background is inextricably linked to
the history of modern music. Shorter was born in 1933
in Newark, New Jersey and studied visual art at the
Arts High School there, but was attracted to music
and began playing the clarinet at the relatively late age
of fifteen. "I liked the storytelling role of the clarinet
that I heard on compositions like "Scheherezade",
Shorter remembers. "It was just glowing with
possibility there in the shop window, with its shiny
silver keys."
He graduated to the tenor saxophone when he was
seventeen, and within a couple years his brilliant
playing on the horn had earned him the nickname
"The Newark Flash" across the river in Manhattan.
He joined up with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in
1959, and it wasn't long before Shorter began gaining
notice as a composer and was promoted to "musical
director" of the Messengers.
When Shorter joined the Miles Davis band in 1964,
his writing was vital to establishing the sound of that
classic quintet with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter,
and Tony Williams. Davis typically reworked the
compositions of his sidemen but granted Shorter rare autonomy: "When I wrote stuff Miles would say, 'There's no need to
change any of Wayne's music. It's all there.'"
While recording prodigiously as a leader on his own Blue Note dates, Shorter continued to work with Miles. When he
followed Miles on his excursions into electric jazz, he adopted the soprano saxophone as a second instrument, winning the
best soprano category in DownBeat magazine Readers Poll for seventeen years. Shorter co-founded Weather Report with
Joe Zawinul, and he enlarged his compositional canvas with sprawling fusion works that succeeded commercially as well as
artistically--1977's Heavy Weather went gold.
In the '80s and '90s Shorter worked on several soundtracks, and lent his finesse to the pop music of Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell,
and Carlos Santana, among others. He recorded several solo albums for Columbia Records, and then two Grammy® awardwinning
records for Verve: High Life in 1995, and 1+1, a 1997 duo recording with longtime associate Herbie Hancock.
Bassist John Pattitucci says that Shorter possesses the prowess of many classical composers combined. "Wayne's got a feel for
the melody, like Puccini, on an extremely high level, but he's also got the harmonic complexity, like Ravel. He's got a bunch of
stuff going on at the same time."
sueauclair.com

Shorter showcases his growth as a composer with reworkings of some of his older material, including "Capricorn", "Orbits",
and "Angola", a tune he originally recorded at one of his 1965 Blue Note sessions. In its earlier incarnation, "Angola" sped
along, tight and swinging. Here, with layered African rhythms opening up the tune vertically and a horn chorus broadening
the melody, Angola is reharmonized and restructured into an entirely new sound.
"You don't have to be governed or restricted by playing solos on a 'prefabricated" harmony,' Shorter says. "When we have one
harmony start off and it doesn't have to come around a second or third time, you're not restricted, and you start to create a
new drama extemporaneously, right on the spot, not really knowing where it's going to go."
2003 ALEGRIA
After serving as one the principal architects of jazz for over forty years, saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter has
developed some lofty goals for his music. "At this point I'm looking to express eternity in composition," he says. "I'm striving
to open up those people who aren't used to thinking in those
terms."
Fittingly, AlegrÌa, his first all-acoustic studio recording as a
leader since 1967, finds him working with a rich and broad
palette of orchestral colors, including percussion, brass,
woodwinds, and strings and drawing upon musical inspirations
that span the past millennium. AlegrÌa features a traditional
Celtic folk song, a Bach-inspired piece by the modern Brazilian
classical master Heitor Villa-Lobos, a popular Spanish song of
the 1960s-alongside radical re-workings of some of his own
famed compositions from the 1960s, and one new work, the
smoking boogaloo "Sacajawea."
Shorter says he's worked to achieve his panoramic perspective:
"The key thing about this album is that it represents an ongoing
process of me learning how to get out of my own way. Tiger
Woods once said that he lost a golf match because he was in his
own way. Imagine if Beethoven had gotten in his own way-he would have written all his major symphonies for himself as a
concert pianist! When you're modest enough, it broadens your perspective, and you can be free to do anything."
Any recording from the internationally acclaimed jazz figure is eagerly anticipated, but AlegrÌa has special significance as it
comes on the heels of the phenomenally successful Footprints live! This 2002 release was Shorter's premier live recording,
documenting the first time he had ever toured as the leader of his own acoustic group. The quartet is comprised of some
stellar young musicians, Danilo Perez, John Patitucci, and Brian Blade, who each put aside their own highly respected bands
to tour with Shorter. Footprints live! earned a Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Instrumental Album and was universally
lauded. The record topped "Best of 2002" lists in The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times, and won a rare five
stars from DownBeat magazine. European press rivaled that enthusiastic response: the Academy of Arts in France named
Footprints live! Best Jazz Album, and Italy awarded the record three top prizes.
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AlegrÌa was recorded in advance of the Footprints live! tour, and includes three selections with his hit quartet, which critics,
musicians, and fans are calling the "best small group in jazz." "This recording was really the only rehearsal we had," Shorter
says. "The seeds of Footprints live!, its initiation, is subtly evidenced in some of this studio music. After we finished recording
in the studio, we were able to build from there with the tour and create the stories you hear on the road."
With the assistance of producer Robert Sadin, (Herbie Hancock's Gershwin's World), Shorter drafted the quartet members,
and several other creative young players as collaborators, including drummer Terri Lyne Carrington and pianist Brad
Mehldau. On four tracks a sure sense of groove is supplied by Alex AcuÒa, the percussionist who played with Shorter and
Joe Zawinul in Weather Report.
Wayne Shorter's own background is inextricably linked to the history of modern music. Shorter was born in 1933 in Newark,
New Jersey and studied visual art at the Arts High School there, but was attracted to music and began playing the clarinet at
the relatively late age of fifteen. "I liked the storytelling role of the clarinet that I heard on compositions like "Scheherezade",
Shorter remembers. "It was just glowing with possibility there in the shop window, with its shiny silver keys."
He graduated to the tenor saxophone when he was seventeen, and within a couple years his brilliant playing on the horn had
earned him the nickname "The Newark Flash" across the river in Manhattan. He joined up with Art Blakey's Jazz
Messengers in 1959, and it wasn't long before Shorter began gaining notice as a composer and was promoted to "musical
director" of the Messengers.
When Shorter joined the Miles Davis band in 1964, his writing was vital to establishing the sound of that classic quintet with
Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams. Davis typically reworked the compositions of his sidemen but granted
Shorter rare autonomy: "When I wrote stuff Miles would say, 'There's no need to change any of Wayne's music. It's all
there.'"
While recording prodigiously as a leader on his own Blue Note dates, Shorter continued to work with Miles. When he
followed Miles on his excursions into electric jazz, he adopted the soprano saxophone as a second instrument, winning the
best soprano category in DownBeat magazine Readers Poll for seventeen years. Shorter co-founded Weather Report with
Joe Zawinul, and he enlarged his compositional canvas with sprawling fusion works that succeeded commercially as well as
artistically-1977's Heavy Weather went gold.
In the '80s and '90s Shorter worked on several soundtracks, and lent his finesse to the pop music of Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell,
and Carlos Santana, among others. He recorded several solo albums for Columbia Records, and then two Grammy awardwinning
records for Verve: High Life in 1995, and 1+1, a 1997 duo recording with longtime associate Herbie Hancock.
AlegrÌa synthesizes many aspects of Shorter's career into a forward-thinking retrospective of musical languages and styles. Of
the record's style, Shorter jokes, "I'd call it impressionistic, but don't want to say French impressionism, cause they put a big
price tag on that."
Bassist John Pattitucci says that Shorter possesses the prowess of many classical composers combined. "Wayne's got a feel for
the melody, like Puccini, on an extremely high level, but he's also got the harmonic complexity, like Ravel. He's got a bunch of
stuff going on at the same time."
sueauclair.com

Shorter showcases his growth as a composer with reworkings of some of his older material, including "Capricorn", "Orbits",
and "Angola", a tune he originally recorded at one of his 1965 Blue Note sessions. In its earlier incarnation, "Angola" sped
along, tight and swinging. Here, with layered African rhythms opening up the tune vertically and a horn chorus broadening
the melody, Angola is reharmonized and restructured into an entirely new sound.
"You don't have to be governed or restricted by playing solos on a 'prefabricated" harmony,' Shorter says. "When we have one
harmony start off and it doesn't have to come around a second or third time, you're not restricted, and you start to create a
new drama extemporaneously, right on the spot, not really knowing where it's going to go."
One of the record's most beautifully realized tunes is Villa-Lobos's "Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5", which was arranged by
Sadin. On the piece, a plucked cello chorus seems to be holding court for Alex AcuÒa's Afro-Brazilian percussion. Shorter's
tenor improvisation, a study in moody refinement, offers a contrapuntal foil to the cello's statement of the famous melody.
Some of the selections on AlegrÌa came to Shorter quite serendipitously. A few years ago Shorter discovered some sheet
music tucked away in a piano bench, including "12th Century Carol", a choral piece he sang as a student at New York
University. The medieval carol blossoms here with Shorter's groove-based variations.
From the same "time capsule" piano bench Shorter exhumed "Vendiendo AlegrÌa", a 1930s flamenco tune popularized by
Spanish singer Antonio Molina and Orquestra Montillo. Miles Davis gave Shorter the music in the mid-'60s, suggesting that
he "do something with it."
"As I started investigating the tune," Shorter says, "I was struck by how simplistic the melody was, and I wanted to celebrate
it with an arrangement that would have it grow." Shorter applied some of Miles Davis's lessons in the tune's rearrangement.
"When Miles would change things in existing compositions, mostly he would take out notes, notes, notes, notes to let all the
jazz ditties out. Miles would make space for them. Space has its own groove and swing."
Shorter points out that the word "space" can have multiple associations, and connects its interplanetary meaning to his
defining vision for AlegrÌa: "If you get into an aircraft and go a certain distance from the earth and turn on a sound device,
you'd hear all different cultures and sounds going on at the same time. That's something like what I'm trying to do on
AlegrÌa; there is presence yet not intrusion; consonance yet not complete unity. And you've got to keep it all grooving; that's
another challenge right there."
One of the most grooving tunes on AlegrÌa is the lead track, "Sacajawea," a new Shorter composition. Its boogaloo feel is in
the tradition of "Sidewinder", the classic tune by his onetime Jazz Messengers bandmate Lee Morgan. As for the
expectations the title might set up, Shorter says, "It doesn't have the ceremonial sound you'd typically associate with Indians
in a Western film. This could be an expression of Native American children, playing to surprise each other. The recurring
melody is about tenacity, and the shout-out at the end is an ultimate declaration of affirmation."
Shorter's description of "Sacajawea" is true of his overall artistry. His music transcends genre while keeping the
improvisational genius and surprise of jazz burning at the center. Shorter celebrates his 70th birthday in 2003. Inspired by the
younger members of his quartet, he's creating some of the most powerful music of his career. Shorter's childlike imagination
and ceaseless innovation in music invite comparison to the enduring vitality of Picasso in the world of art or of Bergman in
film.
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This exquisite and moving recording is a towering peak in Shorter's outstanding career, and will no doubt garner more
success for the composer and performer. For Wayne Shorter, the secret to that success is finding AlegrÌa or "joy" in
continued creativity: "It's not how far can you go on any given record, it's where you can go after it's done. Happiness is a
work in progress."
2005: BEYOND THE SOUND BARRIER
As a follow-up to 2003's double Grammy® Award-winning Alegria, saxophonist-composer Wayne Shorter returned with
another exhilarating live document that captures the risk-taking chemistry of his celebrated quartet on tour. Beyond the
Sound Barrier continues the remarkable group-think and
deconstructivist aesthetic that Shorter established with
pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci and
drummer Brian Blade on 2002's acclaimed Footprints
Live!, Shorter's first all-acoustic foray since his early ’60s
Blue Note years.
Says the bandleader of his highly interactive unit: “We’re
playing a similar outline in different cities, but we’re
getting further and further away from anything sounding
the same from night to night. These guys all have that
kind of forward-looking attitude. They understand that
it’s OK to be vulnerable, to open oneself and take
chances, and not be afraid of the unknown. So if
somebody feels like they want to bring something else to
it, they do it. We don’t have any mandates in this band.
Our attitude is, ‘Let’s paint in watercolors, use good oils
or get white-out, if that’s what you want to use.’”
In typical Shorter fashion, the conversational title track to Beyond the Sound Barrier carries a certain intellectual heft and scifi
expansiveness to it. Likewise, “Adventures Aboard the Golden Mean” refers to that mysterious natural proportion used in
art, architecture and music by the likes of Leonardo Da Vinci, Debussy, Bartok and Beethoven, but Shorter puts a sci-fi twist
to it. “The golden mean is neither captive to the right, left, east, west, north, south or the middle,” says Shorter. “It is attached
to no extreme. That’s a place to try to get to in terms of freedom of thought and choice and all that stuff. And I think it has
nothing to do with an almighty power or anything like that, but a place that we have inside us that’s just asleep a little bit. And
I’m thinking of it like a spaceship called the Golden Mean. I picture a lot of kids on there flying around, having a good time.
And they’re going somewhere along the Golden Mean."
The collection opens with an open-ended take on Arthur Penn's “Smilin’ Through,” which inveterate film buff Shorter dug up
from the deeper recesses of his memory. As he explains, “That’s an old Irish song that was used in a movie with Jeanette
MacDonald and Brian Ahearn. At some point in the movie she’s at the piano and she plays this song, ‘Smilin’ Through.’ The
message of the tune is, whenever a tragedy comes, can you smile through it? And that stuck with me.” Shorter on soprano is
pushed to some ecstatic heights on this tune by Blade's powerhouse traversing of the kit.
“As Far As The Eyes Can See” opens with a free-flowing four-way conversation with Shorter on tenor and gradually evolves
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into a remarkable example of group improv. The piece actually developed from a fragment that originally appeared in “Go”
from the Footprints album. “It’s like a tag that becomes a piece of music,” says Shorter. “You only hear it one time (on ‘Go’).
There’s only two measures and it stops, but this one takes on a whole other harmonic thing and it’s more of an experience of
the eye . . . how far are you willing to see? People who say they don’t feel
Wayne Shorter Quartet biography – page 2
this or that — they don’t feel classical or they don’t feel country, or all they feel is country. all they want is the safety zone or
comfort zone, what they can relate to and everything. Well, I say, if your feelings are only red, blue and yellow, how far can you
extend yourself in a world that needs extending today?”
Felix Mendelssohn’s “On Wings of Song” is a piece that caught Wayne’s ear in 1995. “I still lived in California then and I was
driving home when I started thinking about old movies I had seen, and this song popped into my head. It was from a western
movie . . . something with the fort, the Union soldiers, and they were having a ball. John Wayne would be waltzing with
Maureen O’Hara with this song would be playing in the background. So when this song came to me, I stopped the car, found
a piece of paper and wrote down the first few notes so I wouldn’t forget that I thought about it.” Shorter's tenor sax
investigates the simple melody here and is underscored by Perez's chamber-like aesthetic on piano and Patitucci's buoyantly
interactive groove.
The ethereal “Tinker Bell” is distinguished by a freewheeling conversation between Perez's piano and Patitucci's bowed bass
while the more turbulent “Joy Ryder” is anchored by Blade's muscular yet flexible backbeat and Patitucci's deep, minimalist
groove. Shorter stretches out on soprano sax on this remake of the title track from his 1988 Columbia album. The quartet's inthe-moment
extrapolation here is yet another great example playful group improv. "Over Shadow Hill Way" (also from 1988's
Joy Ryder) gets a looser, more interactive interpretation than its original incarnation. Shorter takes a philosophical stance
about recreating old works:
“Since I don’t believe in the words ‘beginning’ or ‘end,’ then nothing is ever really finished,” he says. "A tune may be put aside
but in reality there are still things there that are worth investigating and developing. Gustav Mahler used to go back and look
at stuff he had written when he was a kid. It was supposed to be finished but then he would incorporate it into other pieces,
developing it in his adult years. Beethoven too, and Mozart. So it’s a continuation.”
Shorter dedicates Beyond the Sound Barrier to a list of people — all explorers in their own way — who didn’t let their
physical or social circumstances stop them from their missions: Dr. Vivien Thomas (pioneer in treatment of blue baby
syndrome), Bess Colman (groundbreaking WWI aviator), Henrietta Bradberry (submarine torpedo experimentation in her
kitchen sink), Gary Morgan (inventor of the traffic signal and the gas mask), Nikola Tesla (electricity and beyond), Dr. Linus
Pauling (DNA pioneer), Dr. Stephen Hawking (quantum physicist), and Christopher Reeve (stem cell advocate).
More than half a century after embarking on his lifelong musical adventure, Shorter is universally regarded as a living legend
in jazz. His great body of work as a composer for such illustrious groups as Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Miles Davis’
famous mid-’60s quintet and fusion supergroup Weather Report is enough to ensure him a spot in the Jazz Hall of Fame. But
if the prolific composer had never written a single tune, his signature sound and choice of notes, sense of economy and
unparalleled expression on both tenor and soprano saxes would have earmarked him for greatness. Combine the writing
prowess with the fragmented, probing solos and the enigmatic Buddhist philosopher presence and you have the makings of a
jazz immortal. “Life is so mysterious, to me,” says Shorter. “I can’t stop at any one thing to say, ‘Oh, this is what it is.’ And I
think it’s always becoming, always becoming. That’s the adventure. And imagination is part of that adventure.”
sueauclair.com

Born in Newark, New Jersey on August 25, 1933, Shorter had his first great jazz epiphany as a teenager: “I remember seeing
Lester Young when I was 15 years old. It was a Norman Granz Jazz
Wayne Shorter Quartet biography – page 3
at the Philharmonic show in Newark and he was late coming to the theater. Me and a couple of other guys were waiting out
front of the Adams Theater and when he finally did show up, he had the pork pie hat and everything. So then we were trying
to figure out how to get into the theater from the fire escape around the back. We eventually got into the mezzanine and saw
that whole show — Stan Kenton and Dizzy Gillespie bands together on stage doing ‘Peanut Vendor,’ Charlie Parker with
strings doing ‘Laura’ and stuff like that. And Russell Jacquet . . . Ilinois Jacquet. He was there doing his thing. That whole
scene impressed me so much that I just decided, ‘Hey, man, let me get a clarinet.’ So I got one when I was 16, and that’s when
I started music.”
Switching to tenor saxophone, Shorter formed a teenage band in Newark called The Jazz Informers and later got some
invaluable bandstand experience with the Jackie Bland Band, a progressive Newark orchestra that specialized in bebop.
While still in high school, Shorter participated in several cutting contests on Newark's jazz scene, including one memorable
encounter with sax great Sonny Stitt. He attended college at New York University while also soaking up the Manhattan jazz
scene by frequenting popular nightspots like Birdland and Cafe Bohemia. Shorter worked his way through college by playing
with the Nat Phipps orchestra. Upon graduating in 1956, he worked briefly with Johnny Eaton and his Princetonians,
earning the nickname "The Newark Flash" for his speed and facility on the tenor saxophone. But just as he was beginning to
make his mark, Shorter was drafted into the Army. He recalls a memorable jam session at the Cafe Bohemia just days before
he was shipped off to Fort Dix, New Jersey. “A week before I went into the Army I went to the Cafe Bohemia to hear music,
I said, for the last time in my life. I was standing at the bar having a cognac and I had my draft notice in my back pocket.
That’s when I met Max Roach. He said, ‘You’re the kid from Newark, huh? You’re The Flash.’ And he asked me to sit in.
They were changing drummers throughout the night, so Max played drums, then Art Taylor, then Art Blakey. Oscar
Pettiford was on cello. Jimmy Smith came in the door with his organ. He drove to the club with his organ in a hearse. And
outside we heard that Miles was looking for somebody named Cannonball. And I’m saying to myself, ‘All this stuff is going on
and I gotta go to the Army in about five days!’”
Following his time in the service, Shorter had a brief stint in 1958 with Horace Silver and later played in the house band at
Minton's Playhouse in Harlem. It was around this time that Shorter began jamming with fellow tenor saxophonists John
Coltrane and Sonny Rollins. In 1959, Shorter had a brief stint with the Maynard Ferguson big band before joining Art Blakey
and the Jazz Messengers in August of that year. He remained with the Jazz Messengers through 1963, becoming Blakey's
musical director and contributing several key compositions to the band's book during those years. Shorter made his recording
debut as a leader in 1959 for the Vee Jay label and in 1964 cut the first of a string of important recordings for the Blue Note
label. He joined the Miles Davis band in 1964 and remained with the group through 1970, contributing such landmark
compositions as “Nefertiti,” “E.S.P.,” “Pinocchio,” “Sanctuary,” “Fall” and “Footprints.”
In 1970, Shorter co-founded the group Weather Report with keyboardist and Miles Davis alum, Joe Zawinul. It remained the
premier fusion group through the ’70s and into the early ’80s before disbanding in 1985 after 16 acclaimed recordings,
including 1980's Grammy Award-winning double-live LP set, 8:30. Shorter formed his own group in 1986 and produced a
succession of electric jazz albums for the Columbia label — 1986's Atlantis, 1987's Phantom Navigator, 1988's Joy Ryder. He
re-emerged on the Verve label with 1995's High Life. After the tragic loss of his wife in 1996 (she was aboard the ill-fated
Paris-bound flight TWA 800), Shorter returned to the scene with 1997's 1+1, an intimate duet recording with pianist and
former Miles Davis quintet bandmate Herbie Hancock. The two spent 1998 touring as a duet and by the summer of 2001
Wayne began touring as the leader of a talented young lineup featuring pianist Danilo Perez,
sueauclair.com

Wayne Shorter Quartet biography – page 4
bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade, each a celebrated recording artist and bandleader in his own right. The
group's uncanny chemistry was well documented on 2002's acclaimed Footprints Live! Shorter followed in 2003 with the
ambitious Alegría, an expanded vision for large ensemble which earned him a Grammy Award.
Shorter sees his current recording, the live Beyond the Sound Barrier, as part of a creative continuum. “It’s the same
mission . . . fighting the good fight,” he says. “It’s making a statement about what life is, really. And I’m going to end the line
with it . . .” He adds, “A lot of musicians worry about protecting what I call their musical foundation. They want to be on
their Ps and Qs on stage, put their best foot forward, play their best runs, and try to impress people. But I'm at a point where
I’m just going say, ‘To hell with the rules.’ That’s all I’m doing with the music now. I’m 71, I’ve got nothing to lose now. I’m
going for the unknown.”
The events in his incredible life’s journey have been chronicled by author Michelle Mercer in "Footprints: The Life And
Music of Wayne Shorter" (A Tarcher/Penguin hardcover), which was released in January 2005.
DVD: WAYNE SHORTER - LIVE AT
MONTREAUX 1996
As one of the principle architects of jazz for over forty years,
saxophonist Wayne Shorter has earned accolades as a unique
composer, improvisational artist, and sideman to many of jazz’s
legendary giants – Art Blakey, Miles Davis and Herbie
Hancock to name a few.
Born August 25, 1933, to a musical family in Newark, New
Jersey, Shorter’s background is inextricably linked to the
history of modern music. Encouraged in the arts by his father,
Shorter began his musical ambitions with the clarinet at a
relatively late age – fifteen. “I liked the storytelling role of the
clarinet that I heard on compositions like “Scheherezade”,
Shorter remembers. “It was just glowing with possibility there
in the shop window, with its shiny silver keys.”
He graduated to the tenor saxophone when he was seventeen,
and within a couple years his brilliant playing on the horn had
earned him the nickname "The Newark Flash" across the river
in Manhattan. He joined up with Art Blakey's Jazz
Messengers in 1959, and it wasn't long before Shorter began
gaining notice as a composer and was promoted to "musical
director" of the Messengers.
When Shorter joined the Miles Davis band in 1964, his writing
sueauclair.com

was vital to establishing the sound of that classic quintet with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams. Davis
typically reworked the compositions of his sidemen but granted Shorter rare autonomy: "When I wrote stuff Miles would
say, 'There's no need to change any of Wayne's music. It's all there.'"
While recording prodigiously as a leader on his own Blue Note dates, Shorter continued to work with Miles. When he
followed Miles on his excursions into electric jazz, he adopted the soprano saxophone as a second instrument, winning the
best soprano category in DownBeat magazine Readers Poll for seventeen years. Shorter co-founded Weather Report with
Joe Zawinul, and he enlarged his compositional canvas with sprawling fusion works that succeeded commercially as well as
artistically-1977's Heavy Weather went gold.
In the '80s and '90s Shorter worked on several soundtracks, and lent his finesse to the pop music of Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell,
and Carlos Santana, among others. He recorded several solo albums for Columbia Records, and then two Grammy awardwinning
records for Verve: High Life in 1995, and 1+1, a 1997 duo recording with longtime associate Herbie Hancock.
In 2000, Shorter returned to his acoustic core, forming a quartet and releasing two live albums, Footprints (2002) and
Beyond the Sound Barrier (2005). His all-acoustic Alegría (2004 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Jazz Album)
synthesizes many aspects of Shorter's career into a forward-thinking retrospective of musical languages – including
refinements of folk, classical and jazz stylings. Of the record's style, Shorter jokes, "I'd call it impressionistic, but don't want
to say French impressionism, cause they put a big price tag on that."
Today, Shorter continues his lofty goals for his music. "At this point I'm looking to express eternity in composition," he says.
"I'm striving to open up those people who aren't used to thinking in those terms.” His exquisite and moving masterpieces
intermingle between the popular and the progressive, proving him one of the most remarkable minds in jazz history. The
quality of his juxtaposing creative muse has garnered him an iconic image that spans four decades. Yet, there is no doubt he
will carry on. For Wayne Shorter, the secret to that success is finding joy in continued creativity: “It’s not how far you can go
on any given record, it’s where you can go after it’s done. Happiness is a work in progress.”
sueauclair.com