IMN : Updates for Wayne Shorter

WAYNE SHORTER: ZERO GRAVITY DOCUMENTARY PLEDGE MUSIC CAMPAIGN

IMN

May 8th, 2013

WAYNE SHORTER: ZERO GRAVITY, A DOCUMENTARY ON ONE OF THE GREATEST LIVING JAZZ LEGENDS IS TO BE RELEASED IN 2014.

The inception of ZERO GRAVITY began in 2006 and principal photography is now in progress. Join us in celebrating Wayne Shorter’s life and musical legacy by pledging to help us complete this film by 2014.

PLEDGE NOW
For a limited time you will have the opportunity to pledge for some pretty cool exclusives – Everything from an invitation to a live digital premiere of the director’s cut of the documentary (you’ll get to see the film online before it is released to the general public), autographed DVDs, concert tickets, Wayne’s artwork, a voice mail recording with Wayne and Esperanza Spalding to a private dinner with Wayne and Herbie Hancock!!

ZERO GRAVITY is an intimate portrait of an artist who has influenced music for over six generations. Wayne Shorter continues to break through the imposed limitations of jazz with even more innovative compositions and recordings than he has achieved in the last 50 years.

To learn more about the documentary and donate to the Pledge Music Campaign click here

Wayne Shorter unveiled the future of American music at New Orleans Jazz Fest

IMN

May 7th, 2013

from nola.com

Wayne Shorter unveiled the future of American music at New Orleans Jazz Fest
By: Chris Waddington

Wayne Shorter and his risk-taking quartet triumphed at New Orleans Jazz Fest on Sunday. And Shorter’s program revealed why his most recent CD is entitled “Without a Net.”

This was abstract, meditative music full of shifting meters, dramatic pauses, and a wide-ranging dynamic rarely heard outside opera houses. Built upon rhythmic shards and melodic fragments from Shorter’s vast and much honored compositional legacy, the music unfolded as a series of ever-evolving suites.

Shorter’s band treated a standing-room, Jazz Tent crowd to simultaneous, four-way improvisations, in which the rhythmic pulse and harmonic core were shared equally. This was true chamber music in which the distinctions between soloist and rhythm section seemed utterly irrelevant.

To read the full article click here

Jazz Conquers Istanbul, for a Global Event

IMN

April 30th, 2013

from huffingtonpost.com

Jazz Conquers Istanbul, for a Global Event

Jazz is a balm that heals the spirit’ said Al Jarreau, the divine singer of free-form.

‘Jazz is, saying, I dare you’ added Wayne Shorter, arguably the most creative composer and saxophone player around, and quoted another great saxophonist, Sonny Rollins who, when once asked ‘why do you play jazz’, responded: ‘We do not play jazz to be famous or to be a master of the instrument, but to be more human.’

Jarreau, Shorter and many other jazz virtuosos — Herbie Hancock, Marcus Miller, John McLaughlin, Robert Glasper, Lee Ritenour, Terence Blanchard etc — were assembled today, April 29, in Istanbul’s famous Topkapi Palace Gardens to announce the most anticipated global musical event of the year.

To read the full article click here

Wayne Shorter's Adventures In The Realm Of Jazz's Superheroes

IMN

April 28th, 2013

from offbeat.com

*Wayne Shorter’s Adventures In The Realm Of Jazz’s Superheroes *
By: Geraldine Wyckoff

Wayne Shorter speaks in much the same way that he plays. The saxophonist and composer articulates his unique world view, his quest for unanticipated directions and humor through his language, his horn and his compositions.

“How do we rehearse the unexpected?” Shorter rhetorically asks when talking about his quartet—pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Pattitucci and drummer Brian Blade—a dream team together for almost a dozen years. “How do we rehearse the unknown? That’s the place we’re daring ourselves to go. Surprise is eternal. That’s what I’m trying to do when I’m playing. Profundity exists already in everybody, just sometimes it’s dormant—asleep. I’m trying to wake mine up so I’m just asking, in a sense, ‘How ‘bout y’all? Hi y’all!’”

To read the full article click here

Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter pay tribute to Miles Davis

IMN

April 24th, 2013

latimes.com

Jazz review: Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter pay tribute to Miles Davis
By: Chris Barton

There was a central problem with the “Tribute to Miles” concert at Disney Hall Tuesday night, and it was readily acknowledged from the stage.

“How do you look back on someone who refused to look back himself?” asked bassist and former Davis collaborator Marcus Miller midway through the set. Miller was explaining how he put together the band, which in addition to trumpeter Sean Jones and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta also featured two of Davis’ most famous bandmates in Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter.

Although Miller brings up a real paradox to honoring Davis — an artist who turned jazz on its head somewhere between three and five times — it hasn’t stopped people from trying. In addition to an endless churn of reissues and live “bootlegs” released since the trumpeter’s death in 1991 (if another doesn’t come out this year, look for more in the next), the number of concerts honoring Davis has multiplied to the point that more people have heard Davis’ music on the road in recent years than while the man was alive and performing.

To read the full article click here

Wayne Shorter rules the stage in Nashville

IMN

April 16th, 2013

from artsnash.com

Wayne Shorter rules the stage in Nashville
By: Ron Wynn

Wayne Shorter may be approaching 80, but he’s still looking ahead as a composer, bandleader and instrumentalist. The quartet he’s led since 2002 is a formidable one, and their Friday night concert at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center was an intriguing mix of improvisational works and collective excellence.
The opening 50-minute set featured the Shorter ensemble, with Shorter on tenor and soprano sax, bassist John Patitucci, pianist Danilo Pérez and drummer Brian Blade.

To read the full article click here

Blue Note's Don Was on Re-Signing Wayne Shorter

IMN

April 12th, 2013

_from jazztimes.com

Blue Note’s Don Was on Re-Signing Wayne Shorter
By: Jeff Tamarkin

Don Was didn’t waste any time signing Wayne Shorter to Blue Note Records. The day after he was named chief creative officer of the label in August 2011, Was found himself on a plane to Paris with his friend Ken Hertz—who happens to be Shorter’s lawyer. “I said, ‘I just got this gig. What would it take to get Wayne on Blue Note?’” Was, who has since been promoted to label president, recalls. “And it just happened. He had just left his last label. It was amazing.”

To read the full article click here

A Conversation with the Wayne Shorter Quartet

IMN

April 10th, 2013

from jazztimes.com

Over the past dozen years, saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter’s quartet featuring pianist Danilo Pérez, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade has become a paragon of jazz’s exploratory spirit. The band’s must-experience concerts, with their seamless programs and apparent sense of collective intuition, boast the sort of peaks and valleys that only genuine creative risk taking can generate. Without a Net, Shorter’s first effort for the Blue Note label in over four decades, gathers inspired moments from the group’s 2011 European tour and contains six previously unrecorded Shorter originals.

This conversation was recorded in front of a live audience last September, during a JazzTimes-sponsored panel session at the 2012 Detroit Jazz Festival. It brings together all four quartet members and the acclaimed pianist Renee Rosnes, who played in Shorter’s band in 1988.

To read the full article and interview click here

Legendary saxophonist Wayne Shorter's indelible stamp on the history of jazz

IMN

April 10th, 2013

*Legendary saxophonist Wayne Shorter’s indelible stamp on the history of jazz *
By: Geoffrey Himes

Wayne Shorter is the most unassuming of musical geniuses. To watch him onstage, patiently hanging back to find the right opening for his pithy, lyrical phrases, you would never guess the tremendous impact he has had on whatever band stands around him. In groups where he was ostensibly a sideman (the early-‘60s Jazz Messengers and two of Miles Davis’ greatest quintets) or in ensembles where he has been the humblest of leaders (Weather Report and the current Wayne Shorter Quartet), the saxophonist doesn’t take over the band so much as seduce everyone around him into his musical worldview.

Part of Shorter’s influence stems from distinctive compositions; almost every album he’s ever been on has featured multiple Shorter compositions, such as “Free for All” for Art Blakey, “E.S.P.” for Davis and “Palladium” for Weather Report. Like Thelonious Monk, Shorter has the ability to write themes that are immediately accessible and yet strikingly original in their succinct melodies, somehow still opening the door to endless hallways of improvisation. More of his influence stems from his own tenor and soprano sax solos, which have the same qualities as his writing, and which inevitably spur everyone around him to play similarly.

To read the full article click here

from nashvillescene.com

Shorter's quartet plays with incantatory fervor and heavenly grace

IMN

March 27th, 2013

from thetalkhouse.com

Dave Douglas > Wayne Shorter
By: Dave Douglas

I was listening to Wayne Shorter’s new album on the Taconic State Parkway when I heard a woman’s voice yelling, “Oh my God!” It was intense, one of those things where you think maybe you should pull over and find out what’s going on. When I got home, I realized it was actually on the recording. It was one of the players in the woodwind quintet Imani Winds, who join the Wayne Shorter Quartet on “Pegasus.” (This happens at 7:16.)

It was the perfect reaction to the immediacy and urgency of this music. Shorter’s quartet plays with incantatory fervor and heavenly grace. Every moment is alive with possibility and charged with electric energy. It’s music where you feel like anything can happen, and once you start to grasp the rules of the game you pick up on the profundity of the choice of what actually does happen. Without a Net presents a side of Shorter we haven’t heard before on record—there’s a new freedom and flight of imagination, as well as a crucial re-imagining of the meeting of composed and improvised music.

To read the full article click here

Confirmed Tourdates As Of March 27th, 2013

IMN

June 7th, 2013: Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Center Chicago, IL USA [Wayne Shorter Quartet featuring Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade ]
June 28th, 2013: Town Hall New York, NY USA [Wayne Shorter 80th Birthday Celebration Featuring Wayne Shorter Quartet, ACS, Sound Prints: Dave Douglas & Joe Lovano Quintet]
June 29th, 2013: Maisonneuve Theatre de la Place des Arts Montreal, QC, CANADA [Wayne Shorter 80th Birthday Celebration Wayne Shorter Quartet with Danilo Perez, John Patitucci, Brian Blade]
June 30th, 2013: Dominion-Chalmers United Church, Ottawa Internatio Ottawa, ON, CANADA [Wayne Shorter Quartet featuring Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade]
July 16th, 2013: La Pinede Gould Juan les Pins, Antibes, France [Wayne Shorter Quartet featuring Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade]
July 18th, 2013: Soho Factory Warsaw, Poland [Wayne Shorter Quartet featuring Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade ]
July 20th, 2013: Ravello Festival, Villa Rufolfo Ravello, Salerno, ITALY [Wayne Shorter Quartet featuring Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade]
July 21st, 2013: Cavea Auditorium Roma Rome, ITALY [Wayne Shorter Quartet featuring Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade]
July 23rd, 2013: Palais Longchamp, Festival de Jaz des Cinq Contine Marseille, France [The Wayne Shorter Quartet featuring Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade]
July 25th, 2013: Festival A Vannes, Jardin de Limur Vannes , France [Wayne Shorter Quartet featuring Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade]
July 27th, 2013: Chapiteau, Marciac Jazz Festival Marciac, France [Wayne Shorter Quartet featuring Danilo Perez, John Patitucci, and Brian Blade]
July 29th, 2013: Armorie D'Arte Festival, Parco Archeologico Scolac Roccelletta Borgia, ITALY [Wayne Shorter Quartet featuring Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade]
August 3rd, 2013: Newport Jazz Festival Newport, RI USA [Wayne Shorter Quartet featuring Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade]
August 29th, 2013: Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre Salt Lake City, UT USA [Wayne Shorter 80th Birthday Celebration]
September 22nd, 2013: Lyons Stage, Monterey Jazz Festival Monterey, CA USA [Wayne Shorter Quartet featuring Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade]
September 26th, 2013: The Kennedy Center Washington , DC USA [Wayne Shorter Quartet with the National Symphony Orchestra special guest Esperanza Spalding]
November 2nd, 2013: Orchestra Hall Detroit, MI USA [Wayne Shorter and Esperanza Spalding with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra]
November 6th, 2013: Lucerna Grand Hall, Lucerna Palace Prague, Czech Republic [Wayne Shorter Quartet with the Prague Philarmonic]
November 8th, 2013: Philharmonie Essen Essen, Germany [Wayne Shorter Quartet featuring Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade]
November 9th, 2013: Kolner Philharmonie Koln, Germany [Wayne Shorter Quartet featuring Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade]
November 11th, 2013: De Roma Borgerhout, Belgium [Wayne Shorter Quartet featuring Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade]
November 12th, 2013: Philharmonie Luxembourg Luxembourg City, Luxembourg [Wayne Shorter Quartet featuring Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade]
November 14th, 2013: Jazztopad Festival Wroclaw, Poland [Wayne Shorter Quartet featuring Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade]
November 21st, 2013: Center For The Arts, University of Buffalo Buffalo, NY CANADA [Wayne Shorter 80th Birthday Celebration Wayne Shorter Quartet with Danilo Perez, John Patitucci, Brian Blade]
November 22nd, 2013: Massey Hall Toronto, ON, CANADA [Wayne Shorter 80th Birthday Celebration Wayne Shorter Quartet with Danilo Perez, John Patitucci, Brian Blade]
February 21st, 2014: Memorial Hall, UNC Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, NC USA [Wayne Shorter at 80 featuring Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade]
June 6th, 2014: L'Auditorium Lyon, France [Wayne Shorter Quartet featuring Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade]

Blue Notes: Wayne Shorter

IMN

March 25th, 2013

from scmp.com

In the words of Blue Note Records president Don Was, Wayne Shorter is “one of the greatest musicians and composers of our time”. There is not much room for argument with that.

Was, himself better known as a musician and record producer, and now a little more than a year into his new role, was welcoming one of Blue Note’s most distinguished alumni back into the fold after an absence of more than four decades.

For the past 18 years, Shorter’s albums as a leader have come out on another iconic jazz label, Verve, but as both Verve and Blue Note are part of the Universal Music Group, his change of address isn’t that radical.

To read the full article click here

JAZZ CONVERSATIONS: WAYNE SHORTER & JOE LOVANO, PT. 3

IMN

March 19th, 2013

Joe Lovano sits down with Wayne Shorter for Part 3 of a discussion about music and beyond. Now available from Blue Note Records: Wayne Shorter Quartet’s WITHOUT A NET & Joe Lovano Us Five’s CROSS CULTURE.

To watch part 3 of the interview click here

Without A Net "...consistently excellent"

IMN

March 14th, 2013

from topfivemusic.wordpress.com

Iconic jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter has returned to Blue Note Records this year to release Without A Net. His first album with the label as bandleader in 43 years shows no trace of age and he is as dextrous and intelligent as ever.

The album is mostly from the Wayne Shorter Quartet’s 2011 Europe tour and as a result is a bit minimalistic. Only rarely are more than two instruments noticeable at once, but that merely gives each one space to shine. Wayne Shorter himself burns through the entire album. His lyricism is unparallelled here and his virtuosity is as undeniable as it ever was. The saxophone has had its fair share of masters and at eighty, Wayne Shorter can still stand with pride amongst them.

To read the full article click here

JAZZ CONVERSATIONS: WAYNE SHORTER & JOE LOVANO, PT. 2

IMN

March 12th, 2013

Joe Lovano sits down with Wayne Shorter for Part 2 of a discussion about music and beyond. Now available from Blue Note Records: Wayne Shorter Quartet’s WITHOUT A NET & Joe Lovano Us Five’s CROSS CULTURE.

To watch part 2 of the interview click here

JAZZ CONVERSATIONS: WAYNE SHORTER & JOE LOVANO, PT. 1

IMN

March 5th, 2013

Joe Lovano sits down with Wayne Shorter for Part 1 of a discussion about music and beyond. Now available from Blue Note Records: Wayne Shorter Quartet’s WITHOUT A NET & Joe Lovano Us Five’s CROSS CULTURE.

To watch the video click here