the WAYNE SHORTER thread

I'm not really interested in the accompanying graphic novel/concept stuff, but his new epic treble album is sounding pretty great on first listen.

The 4 part suite for quartet and chamber orchestra bit of this album has grown on me a lot, haven't even got around to the other 2 discs yet. But the band includes Danilo Perez, so that should be good.

"As an aside, I always loved that in most record store jazz sections it went:

Bobby Short
Wayne Shorter"

hah!

LOL

Of course, a REALLY good jazz rec shop would go

Bobby Short
Alan Shorter

Poor Alan had to live in the shadow of a ridiculously talented younger sibling and then died relatively young.

Both of Alan's albums, Orgasm and Tes Esat, are really good and worth hearing - and they're both on Spotify.

When @milesdavis and I talked, he would ask me a question. 'Hey Wayne -- do you ever get tired of playing music that sounds like music?' Before I answered him, he said, 'I know what you mean.' Like, he's answering his own question. 🕵️‍♀️👣💫

— Wayne Shorter (@Wayne_Shorter) March 13, 2019

Shorter's quartet may be one of the most extraordinary units I've ever heard. I truly cannot get enough of this music.

absolute unit

As I said upthread, they really are one of the free-est bands in current jazz. They can and will go anywhere.

Has Shorter ever been on a bad record? Later Weather Report stuff maybe? I haven't heard anything I didn't like.

I <3 Wayne Shorter so much

Def one of the great bands of the early 21st century.

Looking at his wiki discography, this was my guess for the worst record he's been on:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swing_of_Delight

But now I'm listening, and it's kind of sick (Carlos Santana playing fantasy camp with Miles Davis' second classic quintet)

Is Brian Blade still in the band?

Supernova seems to be the one I go back to a lot, gorgeous album.

OMG I am a longtime STAN of Supernova. I wrote a thing about it for my college paper.

Is Brian Blade still in the band?

He played here last year, I think ...

four years ago is when i last saw him, at that year's jazzfest, and he still sounded great. it was just him and herbie onstage, and they played an entirely improvised single-"song" set, it was astonishing and bent my mind permanently

i have spent the last four years hoping someone recorded in in its entirety but no dice. however i did just find this clip of it on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3agp0ejoGs

i was so depressed that weekend bc i was still reeling from a bad breakup the previous year and prince had just died and that set absolutely confirmed for me that music is the healing force of the universe

that was amazing

just heard he passed away :(
what a legend

Beyond question.

so sad he's gone, RIP

One of the best random purchases I ever made was of Native Dancer about 20 years ago. I can list five or six great albums, but I'll remember him for his mid to late '60s work with Miles. Sorcerer, Nefertiti, Miles in the Sky -- what a fucking run. And the title track "Nefertiti" is all his -- that one's repetitions still melts my mind.

really was a legend, so distinct in so many styles

OTM re: "Nefertiti." I've been doing a deep Miles dive lately, and that title track is such a stunner. xp

Imagine listening to "Nefertiti" live.

It’s overlooked a little, partly because he was known as much for being a performer as a composer, but I think there’s an argument to be made that Wayne Shorter might have been the greatest composer in the history of jazz.

Davis:

"Wayne is a real composer. He writes scores, writes the parts for everybody just as he wants them to sound. ... Wayne also brought in a kind of curiosity about working with musical rules. If they didn't work, then he broke them, but with musical sense; he understood that freedom in music was the ability to know the rules in order to bend them to your own satisfaction and taste."

Truly one of one, RIP.

I still haven't spent enough time with his late period group with Brian Blade, John Patitucci, and Danilo Perez. The way they worked felt so mysterious and at the highest levels of interplay, abstract and yet totally together.

Let’s not forget his run on Blue Note “Speak No Evil” slays

Let’s not forget his run on Blue Note “Speak No Evil” slays

Such an original. Don’t even know what to say or where to begin. Maybe I will just quote Marlene Dietrich in Touch of Evil: “He was some kind of a man. What does it matter what you say about people?”

legend.☮️

love that miles quote alfred. was going to make a comment about how you always knew it was WAYNE SHORTER when he played because he had such a unique and distinct whatnot and whatever. that quote sums up the mechanics of why that was pretty well.

and another one of those players where he was able to simultaneously capture a perfect "anything can happen" feeling, but you also just knew he was already thinking at least 4 or 5 bars ahead.

I got to see him in 2011 and it was amazing; the kind of performance that only grows greater in your mind as you think about it afterward. I reviewed it for the Voice.

his work w/art blakey and the jazz messengers was great, and he had lots of excellent compositions performed with that group. can't forget weather report either obv.

unperson otm: "his solos were calmly reasoned explications of the beautiful melodies he composed."

Yeah obviously the '60s albums are total classics. I love that they exist as a merger of the Miles and Coltrane classic lineups, if they didn't it would be an unfulfilled fantasy.

you know, i've never thought of those albums like this-

they exist as a merger of the Miles and Coltrane classic lineups

not in a bad way or anything just... huh, good observation.

Yeah, it's true; Night Dreamer and Juju are Shorter plus Tyner, Workman, and Jones (and Lee Morgan on ND). A kind of alternate universe Coltrane band.

And Soothsayer has Tony Williams & Ron Carter + Tyner!

Blakey's "Free For All" also sounds to me very Quartet-ish, Art and Wayne driving each other like Elvin and Trane at peak intensity

RIP to another giant

love Free For All

This is blowing my mind: according to Wikipedia, Shorter appears on 22 Jazz Messengers albums recorded 1959-1964, with 10 of those recorded wholly or in part in 1961. During the same period he was on three albums with Miles, three with Freddie Hubbard, and one-offs with Lee Morgan, The Young Lions, Donald Byrd, Benny Golson, and Gil Evans. Plus six albums of his own!

amazing

i saw his quartet play in 2010… in truth wayne shorter played very little, he spent a lot of time listening, adjusting his reed, raising his instrument then deciding not to contribute at that moment. from what i have read of this group, not saying anything if he didn’t have anything to say was his regular MO, but even given that I still felt it must’ve been an off night.

having said that, i still walked away thinking it was one of the best bands i have ever seen! i am a jazz dumbo but the way they navigated between structure and freedom seemed unique and searching and not quite like anything i have ever heard before or since.

going for the blue note marathon upon hearing the news and yeah: none of these records will ever get old. the all seeing eye features grachan moncur iii and james spaulding and is roughly a thousand times better than i remember.

(an aside: how many times did mccoy tyner get the shaft "etc." credit on blue note covers? i mean i know it was probably a contractual thing, but dang. can't we retcon that lol?)