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The awesomely talented jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter died on Thursday at age 89. Shorter’s long and illustrious career began in the 1950s; in the course of it, he made unforgettable music that is likely to live on long after him. When jazz was at its apogee as a centerpiece of the confident and forward-looking America of the post-World War II period and its aftermath, Shorter was a remarkable innovator, an imaginative and daring composer and improviser who never lost his deep melodic sense, even when exploring the outer reaches of what music could embody and express. Shorter’s passing is a signpost of a little-noted fact: a great era of American culture has ended.
The titans are passing from the scene. Sonny Rollins, the saxophone colossus, is still with us at age 92. So is another great tenor man, Archie Shepp, who is 85. Pharoah Sanders, another formidable tenor saxophonist, died last September. Miles Davis and John Coltrane are long gone, as are Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Eric Dolphy, and so many others. The generation of musicians that gave us such rich, exhilarating, and uniquely American music is for the most part now available to us only on their recordings, and we can be grateful to have those.
Wayne Shorter was at the center of the golden age of jazz (or one of the periods that can deservedly be called that) and played with a veritable Who’s Who of the magnificent musicians of the period. When he was in his twenties, he was a key member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and made a number of classic recordings with the star-crossed trumpeter Lee Morgan and others. Then he moved on to Miles Davis’ storied quintet of the mid-and-late-’60s, where, along with pianist Herbie Hancock and drummer Tony Williams, he challenged and spurred Davis to new heights.
All that would have been enough for the entire career of an ordinary man, but Wayne Shorter was no ordinary man. In the ’70s, with the market for acoustic jazz having dried up, Shorter teamed up with keyboardist Joe Zawinul and the brilliant, doomed bassist Jaco Pastorius to form Weather Report, one of the premier jazz-rock fusion bands of the period. After that, he continued to make challenging and inspiring music.
Back in college, when I learned about the ancient Greeks (yeah, colleges were different then), I remember being surprised that so many of them were contemporaries, including the philosophers Plato and Aristotle, the historian and military leader Xenophon, and the comic playwright Aristophanes. What we think of as the cultural and literary legacy of ancient Greece was largely (although certainly not completely) the work of people of just a few generations in one city, Athens.
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Jeffrey Gilman says
Thank you for posting this wonderful eulogy Mr. Spencer. God truly blessed these giants with a talent that millions have enjoyed, and will continue to enjoy. I think I’ll spend the rest of the day listening to the “Live in Offenbach 1978” album.
Susan Bennett says
Nice article on a significant contributor to our wonderful American culture..Supporting learning, asking questions, using logic to figure things out and problem solve are parts of ancient Greece that influenced Jews at that time and are still a part of Jewish culture that has contributed to Jews frequently leading the way in advancing mankind and improving the lot of all people.
Westman says
Wayne Shorter was an extremely talented musician/composer whose unusual modal compositions I’ve enjoyed over the years. I often play some of his compositions on the piano: Wildflower, Footprints, Black Nile, El Gaucho, Night Dreamer, and a few others.
He was a tonal genius.
If there is no music in the hereafter, let the radical Muslims have it. If there is, Wayne, I’ll be looking for you. Those who don’t like the music can go elsewhere and get the lead ear plugs that we heard “Allah” is offering.
Some jazz a day keeps the jihads away.
Graeme Howarth says
Thanks for introducing me to this music. I enjoyed it!