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Wayne
Shorter
Shorter
began his career as a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers
from 1958 to 1963, composing, arranging and developing his
distinct tenor sound. He began recording albums as a leader
in the early '6Os for Blue Note Records, and joined Miles
Davis' great second quintet, from1964 to 1970, along with
Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams. During this
time, Shorter established himself as a stellar soprano
saxophonist and became known as an important composer
because of his experimentadon with new song forms and
structural Ideas. Shorter's contributions were pivotal to
Davis' band, which was expanding the parameters of jazz,
pushing the music into new harmonic and rhythmic
territory. Davis
himself lauded Shorter's contributions, saying "Wayne
brought in a kind of curiosity about working with musical
rules. He knew that freedom in music was the ability to know
the rules in order to bend them to your satisfaction and
taste. He was the intellectual musical catalyst for the band
in his arrangement of his musical compositions that we
recorded." In 1968, with MILES IN THE SKY and FILLES DE
KILIMANJARO, Miles started his experiments with rock
elements, including the use of electric keyboards and bass
and rock-styled drums. Shorter can be heard on those two
albums, as well as IN A SILENT WAY and BITCHES
BREW. In
1970, Shorter formed Weather Report with keyboardist Joe
Zawinul (whom he'd met in Davis' band the year before) and
bassist Miroslav Vitous -- with bassist Jaco Pastorius an
important member from 1976 to 1982. With various well-known
drummers, Including Eric Gravatt and percussionists Airto
Moreira and later, Dom Um Romao, the group established
itself as a pioneer in electronic jazz-rock fusion. Weather
Report ushered in a new sound in jazz, attracting a much
larger audience than mainstream artists could, even as many
traditionalists insisted that the band wasn't actually
playing jazz. Meanwhile, Heavy Weather, released in 1978,
was the first million-selling jazz-fusion album, and the
single Birdland was a pop-radio and disco hit. The group
received Grammy nominations for five albums and received a
Grammy award in 1979 for the album 8:30. The group released
their last album in 1985. During
this time, Shorter still involved himself with occasional
side projects including NATIVE DANCER, his landmark project
with vocalist Milton Nascimento released in 1974, which
added a Brazilian touch to his fusion experiments and led to
even wider popularity for Shorter in the jazz and pop
worlds. Shorter also reunited with his former Davis
bandmates in 1976 as V.S.0.P., recording a live album, THE
QUINTET. Following Weather Report, in 1985, Shorter released
another solo album, ATLANTIS, which was nominated for a
Grammy and reasserted Shorter as a premier composer and
performer of progressive music. Shorter followed up with an
acting role, appearing as himself in 'ROUND MIDNIGHT (1986)
and received his second Grammy for his composition Call
Sheet Blues. He then recorded two more solo albums, PHANTOM
NAVIGATOR in 1987 and JOY RYDER in 1988. In
1992, Shorter again reunited with Hancock, Carter and
Williams to pay tribute to and musically celebrate the life
and work of Miles Davis. With young trumpeter Wallace Roney,
the group toured and collaborated on the 1994 Grammy Award
winning album A TRIBUTE TO MILES. That year, Shorter was
also singled out for a nomination for his solo on Pinnochio,
one of his composidons from the '60s. In
recent years, Shorter has contributed saxophone performances
on soundtracks for GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS (1993), THE FUGITIVE
(1993) and LOSING ISAIAH (1995) -- this while taking a
self-prescribed two year vacadon. For his 1995 album,
Shorter again explores new artistic territory. Musically,
Shorter orchestrated his ideas fully. "Every note on the
album is written except for my solos. All the bass lines,
the hand positions on the keyboards, all of it. Still, the
music progresses organically, creating a spontaneous feel as
the orchestra lays dramatic backdrops for Shorter's
exquisite saxophone solos. Shorter worked extensively with
Rachel Z., In the composing stages. "Rachel did the
programming, using two or three keyboards. It was new for
me, in terms of working with a new person. I was connecting
with her, saying, This is a sound that I hear, and I can't
make it with my saxophone. That's what Zawinul and I did in
Weather Report. I'd say be, this is the sound I want." "Even
though we're using synthesizers, it still goes back to
sounds and colors. Rachel and I don't allow the mechanics of
progress to get in the way of that. Rachel comes from a
classical background, and she went directly to my being, my
head, and my soul - and she put it with her soul. Marcus
Miller was brought in on the project next, Initially as a
producer only, then also signing on as the bassist,
contribudng his full, distinct sound. Musically and
conceptually, HIGH LIFE is a rich, intriguing album. In At
the Fair, Shorter's soprano and Gilmore's guitar double the
melody over strings and brass accompaniment that adds lush,
dramatic harmonies and textures. Maya is reminiscent of
Wayne's '6Os compositions, with Shorter's soprano-stated
melody and subsequent solo slowly unfolding to express
complex emotions through his evocadve sound. On
Pandora Awakened, Shorter wrote the foundadon of a funk
groove for Miller's bass and members of the symphony, then
laid his considerable tenor over that. His resultant solo is
a masterpiece, incorporadng the kind of technique only a
master could have but using it to express a mood, not for
mere effect. And on the title track, Shorter's plaintive
tenor gives way to a more formidable sound, highlighdng his
ability to convey great emotion with subtlety and restraint.
Throughout the album, Shorter used synthesizers and computer
technology to best effect, effectively expanding the size of
his band by using sounds sampled from the Czechoslovakian
Symphony string section and recorded onto a CD-ROM disk. "We
mixed those strings sounds with the live Los Angeles
Symphony strings to give it more feeling and warmth,"
Shorter says. "I wanted to have a hundred people in the
studio every day, but the budget didn't allow for it, so
this is how I got the sound I wanted. Shorter
experimented too with the production end of the record,
mixing the sounds he'd recorded in an unconventional manner.
"We didn't mix it according to a traditional orchestration,
with left-to-right stereo imaging," he says. "Instead, I
might have a woodwind crossing a violin, so it's more like
weaving a basket. It's mixed according to what's happening
in the music. If the violins have to be swept under, I do it
in the mix, rather than by having something happen in the
brass. So in the overall sound, certain instruments might be
next to each other then one in front of the other, then
wrapped around each other."
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Joe
Zawinul Site - Musicians
Wayne Shorter
"Music is a piece of clay," Shorter continues. "The main
melody may take place at the end of the piece. It's a ride
and you lump on at your pleasure and grab hold where you
want to. In that way, it's like when people dream of music.
There's a storytelling feeling throughout the album, a
going-somewhere feeling. There's something peculiar or
curious to the sound of the music. A will o' the wisp
elusiveness, a feeling you have for someone. That's what I
kept with me when I wrote the music.