EHe is considered one of the greatest jazz musicians in history, played with Miles Davis and in the fusion band Weather Report and composed some jazz classics: Saxophone legend Wayne Shorter died at the age of 89. The twelve-time Grammy winner died in Los Angeles on Thursday, his agent Alisse Kingsley confirmed to the AFP news agency. Kingsley initially did not provide information on the cause of death.
Shorter has played with jazz greats such as Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Freddy Hubbard and Herbie Hancock over the course of his long career. The tenor and soprano saxophonist continued to develop and played bebop, hard bop, free jazz, jazz rock and fusion over the decades – jazz styles, the development of which he partially promoted.
Part of the famous second quintet
Shorter was born on August 25, 1933 in Newark, New Jersey. He started playing the clarinet as a teenager and then switched to the saxophone. He performed with his brother Alan as “Mr Weird” and “Doc Strange”, partly because the two bebop musicians wore sunglasses in dark jazz clubs.
After studying music at New York University, Shorter spent two years in the US Army, where he played with renowned jazz pianist Horace Silver. He later joined drummer Art Blakey’s hard bop band Jazz Messengers before becoming part of trumpeter Miles Davis’ famous Second Quintet in 1964 with pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Tony Williams.
The band incorporated elements of free jazz into their pieces, but without completely abandoning formal structures. Shorter was also active as a composer, creating jazz classics like “ESP” and “Footprints”.
“Giant of the Saxophone”
In 1970, Shorter co-founded Weather Report with Austrian jazz pianist Joe Zawinul, a style-defining band for their time. The musicians combined jazz with rock, funk and R&B and also experimented with electronic elements. The group’s biggest hits include “Birdland” and “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.”
During his career, Shorter also played with Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan and Carlos Santana, reaching an even larger audience. The saxophonist remained active into old age, but increasingly had to struggle with health problems. Together with bassist Esperanza Spalding he wrote the victims “Iphigenia”, which premiered in 2021.
According to media reports, Shorter died in a Los Angeles hospital. The jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis praised him as a “giant of the saxophone”.
#Saxophone #legend #Wayne #Shorter #dies