Wayne Shorter, the 12-time Grammy-winning saxophonist and composer and the creator of one of the singular sounds in contemporary jazz over more than half a century, died on Thursday, 2^nd March 2023 in Los Angeles. Shorter was 89 years old.

Shorter was an American jazz saxophonist and composer and came to prominence in the late 1950s as a member of, and eventually primary composer for, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. In the 1960s, he joined Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet, and then co-founded the jazz fusion band Weather Report. 

Shorter, died in hospital, “surrounded by his loving family at the time of his transition,” his publicist Alisse Kingsley siad in media reports. No cause of death was given.

Born on 25^th August 1933, in Newark, N.J., Shorter and his brother Alan, a trumpeter, were encouraged by their father to pursue careers in music. But Shorter’s early artistic interests as a young teenager were in the visual arts, especially film, painting and sculpture. It wasn’t until 1948, when he discovered the emergence of bebop and the playing of such breakthrough jazz icons as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Lester Young that he took up the saxophone, forming his own first band in 1952.

The musician is survived by his wife, Carolina, daughters Miyako and Mariana and grandson Max.

Interestingly, I was fortunate to meet the globally renowned Shorter, on his visit to Mumbai in early January 2007 for the Black & White Vh1 Jazz Masters event. Wayne was accompanied by acclaimed jazz legend Herbie Hancock and the duo performed at the NCPA.

Read our interview with the duo on www.musicunplugged.in by clicking on the link below:

https://www.musicunplugged.in/features/features_info/32/10

By Verus Ferreira