WAYNE SHORTERWayne Shorter's background is inextricably linked to

the history of modern music. Shorter was born in 1933

in Newark, New Jersey and studied visual art at the

Arts High School there, but was attracted to music

and began playing the clarinet at the relatively late age

of fifteen. "I liked the storytelling role of the clarinet

that I heard on compositions like "Scheherezade",

Shorter remembers. "It was just glowing with

possibility there in the shop window, with its shiny

silver keys."

He graduated to the tenor saxophone when he was

seventeen, and within a couple years his brilliant

playing on the horn had earned him the nickname

"The Newark Flash" across the river in Manhattan.

He joined up with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in

1959, and it wasn't long before Shorter began gaining

notice as a composer and was promoted to "musical

director" of the Messengers.

When Shorter joined the Miles Davis band in 1964,

his writing was vital to establishing the sound of that

classic quintet with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter,

and Tony Williams. Davis typically reworked the

compositions of his sidemen but granted Shorter rare autonomy: "When I wrote stuff Miles would say, 'There's no need to

change any of Wayne's music. It's all there.'"

While recording prodigiously as a leader on his own Blue Note dates, Shorter continued to work with Miles. When he

followed Miles on his excursions into electric jazz, he adopted the soprano saxophone as a second instrument, winning the

best soprano category in DownBeat magazine Readers Poll for seventeen years. Shorter co-founded Weather Report with

Joe Zawinul, and he enlarged his compositional canvas with sprawling fusion works that succeeded commercially as well as

artistically--1977's Heavy Weather went gold.

In the '80s and '90s Shorter worked on several soundtracks, and lent his finesse to the pop music of Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell,

and Carlos Santana, among others. He recorded several solo albums for Columbia Records, and then two Grammy® award-

winning records for Verve: High Life in 1995, and 1+1, a 1997 duo recording with longtime associate Herbie Hancock.

Bassist John Pattitucci says that Shorter possesses the prowess of many classical composers combined. "Wayne's got a feel for

the melody, like Puccini, on an extremely high level, but he's also got the harmonic complexity, like Ravel. He's got a bunch of

stuff going on at the same time."

sueauclair.com

Shorter showcases his growth as a composer with reworkings of some of his older material, including "Capricorn", "Orbits",

and "Angola", a tune he originally recorded at one of his 1965 Blue Note sessions. In its earlier incarnation, "Angola" sped

along, tight and swinging. Here, with layered African rhythms opening up the tune vertically and a horn chorus broadening

the melody, Angola is reharmonized and restructured into an entirely new sound.

"You don't have to be governed or restricted by playing solos on a 'prefabricated" harmony,' Shorter says. "When we have one

harmony start off and it doesn't have to come around a second or third time, you're not restricted, and you start to create a

new drama extemporaneously, right on the spot, not really knowing where it's going to go."

2003 ALEGRIA

After serving as one the principal architects of jazz for over forty years, saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter has

developed some lofty goals for his music. "At this point I'm looking to express eternity in composition," he says. "I'm striving

to open up those people who aren't used to thinking in those

terms."

Fittingly, AlegrÌa, his first all-acoustic studio recording as a

leader since 1967, finds him working with a rich and broad

palette of orchestral colors, including percussion, brass,

woodwinds, and strings and drawing upon musical inspirations

that span the past millennium. AlegrÌa features a traditional

Celtic folk song, a Bach-inspired piece by the modern Brazilian

classical master Heitor Villa-Lobos, a popular Spanish song of

the 1960s-alongside radical re-workings of some of his own

famed compositions from the 1960s, and one new work, the

smoking boogaloo "Sacajawea."

Shorter says he's worked to achieve his panoramic perspective:

"The key thing about this album is that it represents an ongoing

process of me learning how to get out of my own way. Tiger

Woods once said that he lost a golf match because he was in his

own way. Imagine if Beethoven had gotten in his own way-he would have written all his major symphonies for himself as a

concert pianist! When you're modest enough, it broadens your perspective, and you can be free to do anything."

Any recording from the internationally acclaimed jazz figure is eagerly anticipated, but AlegrÌa has special significance as it

comes on the heels of the phenomenally successful Footprints live! This 2002 release was Shorter's premier live recording,

documenting the first time he had ever toured as the leader of his own acoustic group. The quartet is comprised of some

stellar young musicians, Danilo Perez, John Patitucci, and Brian Blade, who each put aside their own highly respected bands

to tour with Shorter. Footprints live! earned a Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Instrumental Album and was universally

lauded. The record topped "Best of 2002" lists in The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times, and won a rare five

stars from DownBeat magazine. European press rivaled that enthusiastic response: the Academy of Arts in France named

Footprints live! Best Jazz Album, and Italy awarded the record three top prizes.

sueauclair.com

AlegrÌa was recorded in advance of the Footprints live! tour, and includes three selections with his hit quartet, which critics,

musicians, and fans are calling the "best small group in jazz." "This recording was really the only rehearsal we had," Shorter

says. "The seeds of Footprints live!, its initiation, is subtly evidenced in some of this studio music. After we finished recording

in the studio, we were able to build from there with the tour and create the stories you hear on the road."

With the assistance of producer Robert Sadin, (Herbie Hancock's Gershwin's World), Shorter drafted the quartet members,

and several other creative young players as collaborators, including drummer Terri Lyne Carrington and pianist Brad

Mehldau. On four tracks a sure sense of groove is supplied by Alex AcuÒa, the percussionist who played with Shorter and

Joe Zawinul in Weather Report.

Wayne Shorter's own background is inextricably linked to the history of modern music. Shorter was born in 1933 in Newark,

New Jersey and studied visual art at the Arts High School there, but was attracted to music and began playing the clarinet at

the relatively late age of fifteen. "I liked the storytelling role of the clarinet that I heard on compositions like "Scheherezade",

Shorter remembers. "It was just glowing with possibility there in the shop window, with its shiny silver keys."

He graduated to the tenor saxophone when he was seventeen, and within a couple years his brilliant playing on the horn had

earned him the nickname "The Newark Flash" across the river in Manhattan. He joined up with Art Blakey's Jazz

Messengers in 1959, and it wasn't long before Shorter began gaining notice as a composer and was promoted to "musical

director" of the Messengers.

When Shorter joined the Miles Davis band in 1964, his writing was vital to establishing the sound of that classic quintet with

Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams. Davis typically reworked the compositions of his sidemen but granted

Shorter rare autonomy: "When I wrote stuff Miles would say, 'There's no need to change any of Wayne's music. It's all

there.'"

While recording prodigiously as a leader on his own Blue Note dates, Shorter continued to work with Miles. When he

followed Miles on his excursions into electric jazz, he adopted the soprano saxophone as a second instrument, winning the

best soprano category in DownBeat magazine Readers Poll for seventeen years. Shorter co-founded Weather Report with

Joe Zawinul, and he enlarged his compositional canvas with sprawling fusion works that succeeded commercially as well as

artistically-1977's Heavy Weather went gold.

In the '80s and '90s Shorter worked on several soundtracks, and lent his finesse to the pop music of Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell,

and Carlos Santana, among others. He recorded several solo albums for Columbia Records, and then two Grammy award-

winning records for Verve: High Life in 1995, and 1+1, a 1997 duo recording with longtime associate Herbie Hancock.

AlegrÌa synthesizes many aspects of Shorter's career into a forward-thinking retrospective of musical languages and styles. Of

the record's style, Shorter jokes, "I'd call it impressionistic, but don't want to say French impressionism, cause they put a big

price tag on that."

Bassist John Pattitucci says that Shorter possesses the prowess of many classical composers combined. "Wayne's got a feel for

the melody, like Puccini, on an extremely high level, but he's also got the harmonic complexity, like Ravel. He's got a bunch of

stuff going on at the same time."

sueauclair.com

Shorter showcases his growth as a composer with reworkings of some of his older material, including "Capricorn", "Orbits",

and "Angola", a tune he originally recorded at one of his 1965 Blue Note sessions. In its earlier incarnation, "Angola" sped

along, tight and swinging. Here, with layered African rhythms opening up the tune vertically and a horn chorus broadening

the melody, Angola is reharmonized and restructured into an entirely new sound.

"You don't have to be governed or restricted by playing solos on a 'prefabricated" harmony,' Shorter says. "When we have one

harmony start off and it doesn't have to come around a second or third time, you're not restricted, and you start to create a

new drama extemporaneously, right on the spot, not really knowing where it's going to go."

One of the record's most beautifully realized tunes is Villa-Lobos's "Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5", which was arranged by

Sadin. On the piece, a plucked cello chorus seems to be holding court for Alex AcuÒa's Afro-Brazilian percussion. Shorter's

tenor improvisation, a study in moody refinement, offers a contrapuntal foil to the cello's statement of the famous melody.

Some of the selections on AlegrÌa came to Shorter quite serendipitously. A few years ago Shorter discovered some sheet

music tucked away in a piano bench, including "12th Century Carol", a choral piece he sang as a student at New York

University. The medieval carol blossoms here with Shorter's groove-based variations.

From the same "time capsule" piano bench Shorter exhumed "Vendiendo AlegrÌa", a 1930s flamenco tune popularized by

Spanish singer Antonio Molina and Orquestra Montillo. Miles Davis gave Shorter the music in the mid-'60s, suggesting that

he "do something with it."

"As I started investigating the tune," Shorter says, "I was struck by how simplistic the melody was, and I wanted to celebrate

it with an arrangement that would have it grow." Shorter applied some of Miles Davis's lessons in the tune's rearrangement.

"When Miles would change things in existing compositions, mostly he would take out notes, notes, notes, notes to let all the

jazz ditties out. Miles would make space for them. Space has its own groove and swing."

Shorter points out that the word "space" can have multiple associations, and connects its interplanetary meaning to his

defining vision for AlegrÌa: "If you get into an aircraft and go a certain distance from the earth and turn on a sound device,

you'd hear all different cultures and sounds going on at the same time. That's something like what I'm trying to do on

AlegrÌa; there is presence yet not intrusion; consonance yet not complete unity. And you've got to keep it all grooving; that's

another challenge right there."

One of the most grooving tunes on AlegrÌa is the lead track, "Sacajawea," a new Shorter composition. Its boogaloo feel is in

the tradition of "Sidewinder", the classic tune by his onetime Jazz Messengers bandmate Lee Morgan. As for the

expectations the title might set up, Shorter says, "It doesn't have the ceremonial sound you'd typically associate with Indians

in a Western film. This could be an expression of Native American children, playing to surprise each other. The recurring

melody is about tenacity, and the shout-out at the end is an ultimate declaration of affirmation."

Shorter's description of "Sacajawea" is true of his overall artistry. His music transcends genre while keeping the

improvisational genius and surprise of jazz burning at the center. Shorter celebrates his 70th birthday in 2003. Inspired by the

younger members of his quartet, he's creating some of the most powerful music of his career. Shorter's childlike imagination

and ceaseless innovation in music invite comparison to the enduring vitality of Picasso in the world of art or of Bergman in

film.

sueauclair.com

This exquisite and moving recording is a towering peak in Shorter's outstanding career, and will no doubt garner more

success for the composer and performer. For Wayne Shorter, the secret to that success is finding AlegrÌa or "joy" in

continued creativity: "It's not how far can you go on any given record, it's where you can go after it's done. Happiness is a

work in progress."

2005: BEYOND THE SOUND BARRIERAs a follow-up to 2003's double Grammy® Award-winning Alegria, saxophonist-composer Wayne Shorter returned with

another exhilarating live document that captures the risk-taking chemistry of his celebrated quartet on tour. Beyond the

Sound Barrier continues the remarkable group-think and

deconstructivist aesthetic that Shorter established with

pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci and

drummer Brian Blade on 2002's acclaimed Footprints

Live!, Shorter's first all-acoustic foray since his early ’60s

Blue Note years.

Says the bandleader of his highly interactive unit: “We’re

playing a similar outline in different cities, but we’re

getting further and further away from anything sounding

the same from night to night. These guys all have that

kind of forward-looking attitude. They understand that

it’s OK to be vulnerable, to open oneself and take

chances, and not be afraid of the unknown. So if

somebody feels like they want to bring something else to

it, they do it. We don’t have any mandates in this band.

Our attitude is, ‘Let’s paint in watercolors, use good oils

or get white-out, if that’s what you want to use.’”

In typical Shorter fashion, the conversational title track to Beyond the Sound Barrier carries a certain intellectual heft and sci-

fi expansiveness to it. Likewise, “Adventures Aboard the Golden Mean” refers to that mysterious natural proportion used in

art, architecture and music by the likes of Leonardo Da Vinci, Debussy, Bartok and Beethoven, but Shorter puts a sci-fi twist

to it. “The golden mean is neither captive to the right, left, east, west, north, south or the middle,” says Shorter. “It is attached

to no extreme. That’s a place to try to get to in terms of freedom of thought and choice and all that stuff. And I think it has

nothing to do with an almighty power or anything like that, but a place that we have inside us that’s just asleep a little bit. And

I’m thinking of it like a spaceship called the Golden Mean. I picture a lot of kids on there flying around, having a good time.

And they’re going somewhere along the Golden Mean."

The collection opens with an open-ended take on Arthur Penn's “Smilin’ Through,” which inveterate film buff Shorter dug up

from the deeper recesses of his memory. As he explains, “That’s an old Irish song that was used in a movie with Jeanette

MacDonald and Brian Ahearn. At some point in the movie she’s at the piano and she plays this song, ‘Smilin’ Through.’ The

message of the tune is, whenever a tragedy comes, can you smile through it? And that stuck with me.” Shorter on soprano is

pushed to some ecstatic heights on this tune by Blade's powerhouse traversing of the kit.

“As Far As The Eyes Can See” opens with a free-flowing four-way conversation with Shorter on tenor and gradually evolves

sueauclair.com

into a remarkable example of group improv. The piece actually developed from a fragment that originally appeared in “Go”

from the Footprints album. “It’s like a tag that becomes a piece of music,” says Shorter. “You only hear it one time (on ‘Go’).

There’s only two measures and it stops, but this one takes on a whole other harmonic thing and it’s more of an experience of

the eye . . . how far are you willing to see? People who say they don’t feel

Wayne Shorter Quartet biography – page 2

this or that — they don’t feel classical or they don’t feel country, or all they feel is country. all they want is the safety zone or

comfort zone, what they can relate to and everything. Well, I say, if your feelings are only red, blue and yellow, how far can you

extend yourself in a world that needs extending today?”

Felix Mendelssohn’s “On Wings of Song” is a piece that caught Wayne’s ear in 1995. “I still lived in California then and I was

driving home when I started thinking about old movies I had seen, and this song popped into my head. It was from a western

movie . . . something with the fort, the Union soldiers, and they were having a ball. John Wayne would be waltzing with

Maureen O’Hara with this song would be playing in the background. So when this song came to me, I stopped the car, found

a piece of paper and wrote down the first few notes so I wouldn’t forget that I thought about it.” Shorter's tenor sax

investigates the simple melody here and is underscored by Perez's chamber-like aesthetic on piano and Patitucci's buoyantly

interactive groove.

The ethereal “Tinker Bell” is distinguished by a freewheeling conversation between Perez's piano and Patitucci's bowed bass

while the more turbulent “Joy Ryder” is anchored by Blade's muscular yet flexible backbeat and Patitucci's deep, minimalist

groove. Shorter stretches out on soprano sax on this remake of the title track from his 1988 Columbia album. The quartet's in-

the-moment extrapolation here is yet another great example playful group improv. "Over Shadow Hill Way" (also from 1988's

Joy Ryder) gets a looser, more interactive interpretation than its original incarnation. Shorter takes a philosophical stance

about recreating old works:

“Since I don’t believe in the words ‘beginning’ or ‘end,’ then nothing is ever really finished,” he says. "A tune may be put aside

but in reality there are still things there that are worth investigating and developing. Gustav Mahler used to go back and look

at stuff he had written when he was a kid. It was supposed to be finished but then he would incorporate it into other pieces,

developing it in his adult years. Beethoven too, and Mozart. So it’s a continuation.”

Shorter dedicates Beyond the Sound Barrier to a list of people — all explorers in their own way — who didn’t let their

physical or social circumstances stop them from their missions: Dr. Vivien Thomas (pioneer in treatment of blue baby

syndrome), Bess Colman (groundbreaking WWI aviator), Henrietta Bradberry (submarine torpedo experimentation in her

kitchen sink), Gary Morgan (inventor of the traffic signal and the gas mask), Nikola Tesla (electricity and beyond), Dr. Linus

Pauling (DNA pioneer), Dr. Stephen Hawking (quantum physicist), and Christopher Reeve (stem cell advocate).

More than half a century after embarking on his lifelong musical adventure, Shorter is universally regarded as a living legend

in jazz. His great body of work as a composer for such illustrious groups as Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Miles Davis’

famous mid-’60s quintet and fusion supergroup Weather Report is enough to ensure him a spot in the Jazz Hall of Fame. But

if the prolific composer had never written a single tune, his signature sound and choice of notes, sense of economy and

unparalleled expression on both tenor and soprano saxes would have earmarked him for greatness. Combine the writing

prowess with the fragmented, probing solos and the enigmatic Buddhist philosopher presence and you have the makings of a

jazz immortal. “Life is so mysterious, to me,” says Shorter. “I can’t stop at any one thing to say, ‘Oh, this is what it is.’ And I

think it’s always becoming, always becoming. That’s the adventure. And imagination is part of that adventure.”

sueauclair.com

Born in Newark, New Jersey on August 25, 1933, Shorter had his first great jazz epiphany as a teenager: “I remember seeing

Lester Young when I was 15 years old. It was a Norman Granz Jazz

Wayne Shorter Quartet biography – page 3

at the Philharmonic show in Newark and he was late coming to the theater. Me and a couple of other guys were waiting out

front of the Adams Theater and when he finally did show up, he had the pork pie hat and everything. So then we were trying

to figure out how to get into the theater from the fire escape around the back. We eventually got into the mezzanine and saw

that whole show — Stan Kenton and Dizzy Gillespie bands together on stage doing ‘Peanut Vendor,’ Charlie Parker with

strings doing ‘Laura’ and stuff like that. And Russell Jacquet . . . Ilinois Jacquet. He was there doing his thing. That whole

scene impressed me so much that I just decided, ‘Hey, man, let me get a clarinet.’ So I got one when I was 16, and that’s when

I started music.”

Switching to tenor saxophone, Shorter formed a teenage band in Newark called The Jazz Informers and later got some

invaluable bandstand experience with the Jackie Bland Band, a progressive Newark orchestra that specialized in bebop.

While still in high school, Shorter participated in several cutting contests on Newark's jazz scene, including one memorable

encounter with sax great Sonny Stitt. He attended college at New York University while also soaking up the Manhattan jazz

scene by frequenting popular nightspots like Birdland and Cafe Bohemia. Shorter worked his way through college by playing

with the Nat Phipps orchestra. Upon graduating in 1956, he worked briefly with Johnny Eaton and his Princetonians,

earning the nickname "The Newark Flash" for his speed and facility on the tenor saxophone. But just as he was beginning to

make his mark, Shorter was drafted into the Army. He recalls a memorable jam session at the Cafe Bohemia just days before

he was shipped off to Fort Dix, New Jersey. “A week before I went into the Army I went to the Cafe Bohemia to hear music,

I said, for the last time in my life. I was standing at the bar having a cognac and I had my draft notice in my back pocket.

That’s when I met Max Roach. He said, ‘You’re the kid from Newark, huh? You’re The Flash.’ And he asked me to sit in.

They were changing drummers throughout the night, so Max played drums, then Art Taylor, then Art Blakey. Oscar

Pettiford was on cello. Jimmy Smith came in the door with his organ. He drove to the club with his organ in a hearse. And

outside we heard that Miles was looking for somebody named Cannonball. And I’m saying to myself, ‘All this stuff is going on

and I gotta go to the Army in about five days!’”

Following his time in the service, Shorter had a brief stint in 1958 with Horace Silver and later played in the house band at

Minton's Playhouse in Harlem. It was around this time that Shorter began jamming with fellow tenor saxophonists John

Coltrane and Sonny Rollins. In 1959, Shorter had a brief stint with the Maynard Ferguson big band before joining Art Blakey

and the Jazz Messengers in August of that year. He remained with the Jazz Messengers through 1963, becoming Blakey's

musical director and contributing several key compositions to the band's book during those years. Shorter made his recording

debut as a leader in 1959 for the Vee Jay label and in 1964 cut the first of a string of important recordings for the Blue Note

label. He joined the Miles Davis band in 1964 and remained with the group through 1970, contributing such landmark

compositions as “Nefertiti,” “E.S.P.,” “Pinocchio,” “Sanctuary,” “Fall” and “Footprints.”

In 1970, Shorter co-founded the group Weather Report with keyboardist and Miles Davis alum, Joe Zawinul. It remained the

premier fusion group through the ’70s and into the early ’80s before disbanding in 1985 after 16 acclaimed recordings,

including 1980's Grammy Award-winning double-live LP set, 8:30. Shorter formed his own group in 1986 and produced a

succession of electric jazz albums for the Columbia label — 1986's Atlantis, 1987's Phantom Navigator, 1988's Joy Ryder. He

re-emerged on the Verve label with 1995's High Life. After the tragic loss of his wife in 1996 (she was aboard the ill-fated

Paris-bound flight TWA 800), Shorter returned to the scene with 1997's 1+1, an intimate duet recording with pianist and

former Miles Davis quintet bandmate Herbie Hancock. The two spent 1998 touring as a duet and by the summer of 2001

Wayne began touring as the leader of a talented young lineup featuring pianist Danilo Perez, sueauclair.com

Wayne Shorter Quartet biography – page 4

bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade, each a celebrated recording artist and bandleader in his own right. The

group's uncanny chemistry was well documented on 2002's acclaimed Footprints Live! Shorter followed in 2003 with the

ambitious Alegría, an expanded vision for large ensemble which earned him a Grammy Award.

Shorter sees his current recording, the live Beyond the Sound Barrier, as part of a creative continuum. “It’s the same

mission . . . fighting the good fight,” he says. “It’s making a statement about what life is, really. And I’m going to end the line

with it . . .” He adds, “A lot of musicians worry about protecting what I call their musical foundation. They want to be on

their Ps and Qs on stage, put their best foot forward, play their best runs, and try to impress people. But I'm at a point where

I’m just going say, ‘To hell with the rules.’ That’s all I’m doing with the music now. I’m 71, I’ve got nothing to lose now. I’m

going for the unknown.”

The events in his incredible life’s journey have been chronicled by author Michelle Mercer in "Footprints: The Life And

Music of Wayne Shorter" (A Tarcher/Penguin hardcover), which was released in January 2005.

DVD: WAYNE SHORTER - LIVE AT MONTREAUX 1996

As one of the principle architects of jazz for over forty years,

saxophonist Wayne Shorter has earned accolades as a unique

composer, improvisational artist, and sideman to many of jazz’s

legendary giants – Art Blakey, Miles Davis and Herbie

Hancock to name a few.

Born August 25, 1933, to a musical family in Newark, New

Jersey, Shorter’s background is inextricably linked to the

history of modern music. Encouraged in the arts by his father,

Shorter began his musical ambitions with the clarinet at a

relatively late age – fifteen. “I liked the storytelling role of the

clarinet that I heard on compositions like “Scheherezade”,

Shorter remembers. “It was just glowing with possibility there

in the shop window, with its shiny silver keys.”

He graduated to the tenor saxophone when he was seventeen,

and within a couple years his brilliant playing on the horn had

earned him the nickname "The Newark Flash" across the river

in Manhattan. He joined up with Art Blakey's Jazz

Messengers in 1959, and it wasn't long before Shorter began

gaining notice as a composer and was promoted to "musical

director" of the Messengers.

When Shorter joined the Miles Davis band in 1964, his writing

sueauclair.com

was vital to establishing the sound of that classic quintet with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams. Davis

typically reworked the compositions of his sidemen but granted Shorter rare autonomy: "When I wrote stuff Miles would

say, 'There's no need to change any of Wayne's music. It's all there.'"

While recording prodigiously as a leader on his own Blue Note dates, Shorter continued to work with Miles. When he

followed Miles on his excursions into electric jazz, he adopted the soprano saxophone as a second instrument, winning the

best soprano category in DownBeat magazine Readers Poll for seventeen years. Shorter co-founded Weather Report with

Joe Zawinul, and he enlarged his compositional canvas with sprawling fusion works that succeeded commercially as well as

artistically-1977's Heavy Weather went gold.

In the '80s and '90s Shorter worked on several soundtracks, and lent his finesse to the pop music of Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell,

and Carlos Santana, among others. He recorded several solo albums for Columbia Records, and then two Grammy award-

winning records for Verve: High Life in 1995, and 1+1, a 1997 duo recording with longtime associate Herbie Hancock.

In 2000, Shorter returned to his acoustic core, forming a quartet and releasing two live albums, Footprints (2002) and

Beyond the Sound Barrier (2005). His all-acoustic Alegría (2004 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Jazz Album)

synthesizes many aspects of Shorter's career into a forward-thinking retrospective of musical languages – including

refinements of folk, classical and jazz stylings. Of the record's style, Shorter jokes, "I'd call it impressionistic, but don't want

to say French impressionism, cause they put a big price tag on that."

Today, Shorter continues his lofty goals for his music. "At this point I'm looking to express eternity in composition," he says.

"I'm striving to open up those people who aren't used to thinking in those terms.” His exquisite and moving masterpieces

intermingle between the popular and the progressive, proving him one of the most remarkable minds in jazz history. The

quality of his juxtaposing creative muse has garnered him an iconic image that spans four decades. Yet, there is no doubt he

will carry on. For Wayne Shorter, the secret to that success is finding joy in continued creativity: “It’s not how far you can go

on any given record, it’s where you can go after it’s done. Happiness is a work in progress.”

sueauclair.com