Wayne Shorter

Shorter, Wayne
(b Newark, NJ, 25 Aug 1933). American jazz tenor and soprano saxophonist and composer.

He began playing the clarinet at the age of 16, then changed to the tenor saxophone. From 1952 he studied music at New York University (1956, BME) and played in a local band. He performed briefly with Horace Silver in 1956 before being drafted, and in 1958 he joined Maynard Ferguson’s group, in which he first met Joe Zawinul. Shorter then began an important association with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers (1959–64), ultimately serving as the band’s music director. After a brief period of rest and work on his own recordings he joined Miles Davis’s quintet in September 1964. He remained with the group until 1970, taking up the soprano saxophone in late 1968 as Davis experimented with electronic instruments and new ensembles, though during the same period he recorded regularly as a leader. Late in 1970, with Zawinul, he founded Weather Report, which the two men continued to lead into the 1980s. Shorter also recorded an acclaimed album presenting Milton Nascimento (1974) and returned to acoustic jazz when he toured and recorded with Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard and Tony Williams as V.S.O.P. (1976–7). From the mid-1970s he has devoted his time equally to playing tenor and soprano saxophones. In 1985 he greatly reduced his activities with Weather Report, concentrating instead on recording, making international tours with his new group and appearing in reunion concerts with many of his colleagues from the 1960s, most notably Hancock. He also performed in the film Round Midnight (1986). In 1988, with Carlos Santana, he led a Latin jazz-rock group which toured internationally. He toured further with Hancock in the 1990s.