Jazz titan Wayne Shorter, who won 2023 Grammy for Detroit Jazz Fest album, dead at 89
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Wayne Shorter, a towering figure in jazz whose bold compositions and highly influential saxophone style shepherded the genre through more than half a century, died Thursday in Los Angeles at age 89.
While a representative for the musician confirmed his passing, no cause of death was revealed.
Shorter hit the scene in 1959 and would help shape the future of music with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and the Miles Davis Quintet. He played and recorded across eight decades, constantly breaking through genre walls. He co-founded the 1970s fusion outfit Weather Report, made nearly a dozen album appearances with Joni Mitchell and recorded with Carlos Santana and Steely Dan, contributing the wild, free-flowing tenor solo to the Dan’s classic “Aja.”
Many of Shorter’s textured and elliptical compositions — including “Speak No Evil,” “Black Nile,” “Footprints,” and “Nefertiti” — became modern jazz standards and expanded the harmonic horizons of the genre.
Herbie Hancock once said of Shorter in Miles Davis’ Second Great Quintet: “The master writer to me, in that group, was Wayne Shorter. He still is a master. Wayne was one of the few people who brought music to Miles that didn’t get changed.”
As a band leader, Shorter released more than 25 albums. He won 11 Grammy awards and in 2015 was given a lifetime achievement Grammy. This year, he won a Grammy for Best Improvised Jazz Solo for “Endangered Species,” a track from his last release, “Live at the Detroit Jazz Festival,” recorded in 2017.
More:Two jazz recordings with Detroit ties win Grammys
More:Critic's notebook: Bebop hallucination from Wayne Shorter
“Today we feel the weight of the world,” said Detroit Jazz Festival Foundation president and artistic director Chris Collins. “Our hearts are heavy to learn of the passing of our friend Wayne Shorter. (His) impact and the legacy he leaves the jazz community is eternal.
“To us, Wayne Shorter was truly a part of the Detroit Jazz Festival family. He will forever be remembered for his support for the Detroit jazz scene, his many Detroit performances including serving as our 2017 Artist-In-Residence and the Grammy Award-winning ‘Live at the Detroit Jazz Festival.’”
Contact Free Press arts and culture reporter Duante Beddingfield at dbeddingfield@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Wayne Shorter, who won Grammy for Detroit Jazz Fest album, dies at 89
