About

“With some musicians, it is obvious from the start that they are going to make a major impact on jazz. Wayne Shorter had only been with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers for a short time when Miles Davis made him an offer to join his group, although he would not join until 1964. By then he had been with Blakey for four years and developed his own unique musical language and logic, both as a tenor-saxophonist and as a composer.

Shortly before joining Miles Davis, Shorter recorded his first Blue Note album, Night Dreamer, in a quintet also featuring Lee Morgan, McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones. Listening to this brilliant set makes it obvious why Davis wanted Shorter. A very distinctive soloist, Shorter contributes five highly original pieces (including "Virgo" and "Black Nile") plus a version of "Oriental Folk Song." His playing does not fit into any particular style and his writing does not hint at any of his predecessors. Night Dreamer shows that by 1964, Wayne Shorter was a jazz master.” - Music Matters

“Night Dreamer, which also features Blakey band mate Lee Morgan on trumpet, gives Shorter the opportunity to shift his focus away from the more straightforward hard bop of his early recordings, and towards a more open post bop sensibility. While harmonically challenging—as most of Shorter's compositions were and still are to this day—these six Shorter compositions adhered more rigidly to form than either his future work with Miles or his Blue Note recordings from later in the decade.

And so, in a way, Night Dreamer is a transitional record, but a classic one nonetheless. While Shorter remained within more traditional boundaries, his sparer style, with every note considered and yet sounding unconsidered, was beginning to emerge.” - All About Jazz

Musicians:

• Wayne Shorter, tenor sax
• Lee Morgan, trumpet
• McCoy Tyner, piano
• Reginald Workman, bass
• Elvin Jones, drums

About Wayne Shorter:

“Though some will argue about whether Wayne Shorter's primary impact on jazz has been as a composer or as a saxophonist, hardly anyone will dispute his overall importance as one of jazz's leading figures over a long span of time. Though indebted to a great extent to John Coltrane, with whom he practiced in the mid-'50s while still an undergraduate, Shorter eventually developed his own more succinct manner on tenor sax, retaining the tough tone quality and intensity and, in later years, adding an element of funk. On soprano, Shorter is almost another player entirely, his lovely tone shining like a light beam, his sensibilities attuned more to lyrical thoughts, his choice of notes becoming more spare as his career unfolded. Shorter's influence as a player, stemming mainly from his achievements in the '60s and '70s, was tremendous upon the neo-bop brigade who emerged in the early '80s, most notably Branford Marsalis. As a composer, he is best known for carefully conceived, complex, long-limbed, endlessly winding tunes, many of which have become jazz standards yet have spawned few imitators.

Shorter started on the clarinet at 16 but switched to tenor sax before entering New York University in 1952. After graduating with a BME in 1956, he played with Horace Silver for a short time until he was drafted into the Army for two years. Once out of the service, he joined Maynard Ferguson's band, meeting Ferguson's pianist Joe Zawinul in the process. The following year (1959), Shorter joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, where he remained until 1963, eventually becoming the band's music director. During the Blakey period, Shorter also made his debut on records as a leader, cutting several albums for Chicago's Vee-Jay label. After a few prior attempts to hire him away from Blakey, Miles Davis finally convinced Shorter to join his quintet in September 1964, thus completing the lineup of a group whose biggest impact would leapfrog a generation into the '80s.

Staying with Miles until 1970, Shorter became the band's most prolific composer at times, contributing tunes like "E.S.P.," "Pinocchio," "Nefertiti," "Sanctuary," "Footprints," "Fall," and the signature description of Miles, "Prince of Darkness." While playing through Miles' transition from loose post-bop acoustic jazz into electronic jazz-rock, Shorter also took up the soprano in late 1968, an instrument that turned out to be more suited to riding above the new electronic timbres than the tenor. As a prolific solo artist for Blue Note during this period, Shorter expanded his palette from hard bop almost into the atonal avant-garde, with fascinating excursions into jazz-rock territory toward the turn of the decade.

In November 1970, Shorter teamed up with old cohort Joe Zawinul and Miroslav Vitous to form Weather Report, where after a fierce start, Shorter's playing grew mellower, pithier, more consciously melodic, and gradually more subservient to Zawinul's concepts. By now he was playing mostly on soprano, though the tenor would re-emerge more toward the end of WR's run. Shorter's solo ambitions were mostly on hold during the WR days, resulting in but one atypical solo album, Native Dancer, an attractive side trip into Brazilian-American tropicalismo in tandem with Milton Nascimento. Shorter also revisited the past in the late '70s by touring with Freddie Hubbard and ex-Miles sidemen Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams as V.S.O.P.

Shorter finally left Weather Report in 1985, but promptly went into a creative slump. Still committed to electronics and fusion, his recorded compositions from this point became more predictable and labored, saddled with leaden rhythm sections and overly complicated arrangements. After three routine Columbia albums during 1986-1988, and a tour with Santana, he lapsed into silence, finally emerging in 1992 with Wallace Roney and the V.S.O.P. rhythm section in the "A Tribute to Miles" band. In 1994, now on Verve, Shorter released High Life, a somewhat more engaging collaboration with keyboardist Rachel Z.

In concert, he has fielded an erratic series of bands, which could be incoherent one year (1995) and lean and fit the next (1996). He guested on the Rolling Stones' Bridges to Babylon in 1997, and on Herbie Hancock's Gershwin's World in 1998. In 2001, he was back with Hancock for Future 2 Future and on Marcus Miller's M². Footprints Live! was released in 2002 under his own name with a new band that included pianist Danílo Pérez, bassist John Patitucci, and drummer Brian Blade, followed by Alegría in 2003 and Beyond the Sound Barrier in 2005. Given his long track record, Shorter's every record and appearance are still eagerly awaited by fans in the hope that he will thrill them again. Blue Note Records released Blue Note's Great Sessions: Wayne Shorter in 2006.

Though absent from recording, Shorter continued to tour regularly with the same quartet after 2005. They re-emerged on record again in February of 2013 with a live outing from their 2011 tour. Without a Net, his first recording for Blue Note in 43 years, was released in February of 2013, as a precursor to his 80th birthday.” – Blue Note Records

Item description: