Wayne Shorter PDF
Wayne Shorter PDF
Wayne Shorter PDF
OF WAYNE SHORTER
by
MASTER OF MUSICOLOGY
May, 2008
OF WAYNE SHORTER
2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 3
Conclusion 125
Bibliography 129
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“If anyone can sing me one of the tunes Wayne Shorter’s quartet played, I’ll give
‘em five bucks.” These are the words of the jazz band director at a local community
college in East Texas a few years back. Having known this director for a few years, he
allowed me play saxophone with his ensemble over the summer. The previous spring
semester, his group had been invited to play at a jazz festival in Vermont where Shorter
(b.1933) was one of the headliners. Needless to say, these musicians were a little unsure
I had been exposed to Shorter only a year prior but my experience consisted only
of his earlier recordings on the Blue Note label. The saxophonist had just formed an
acoustic quartet for the first time in over three decades and released his album Footprints
Live! At the time, I had not heard this CD and was confused as to why these musicians
felt his melodies were both unsingable and unmemorable. The Blue Note tunes were
unorthodox, but captivating in their quirky mannerisms. However, after I purchased his
latest recording, I quickly realized I could not understand its message. It is possible with
Shorter’s music that the deepest meaning still eludes me to this day and will for years.
Like many musicians who first “discover” amazing musicians in a similar manner, I
placed the disc on my shelf and ignored it. It was too new and sounded nothing like what
I was accustomed to. At the time, I was listening to the blues-influenced playing of
Cannonball Adderley and the big bands of Stan Kenton, Buddy Rich, and Count Basie.
The only connection I saw between my preferred jazz music and Shorter’s was their
location in the record store. Shorter’s songs were just random notes by someone trying to
be too artsy for his own good. This was not music for the people. It was not even
embrace this style of composition, and my opinions about Wayne Shorter have changed.
I credit my epiphany to his very next album, Alegria (Portuguese for “joy”), in particular
No. 5. If you ask any Wayne Shorter fan, they know this song well. The entire album is
a masterpiece, garnering Shorter a Grammy for the first track, “Sacajawea.” He had
played with the two biggest combo leaders of post-bebop jazz: Miles Davis and Art
Blakey. He co-led a major jazz-rock fusion group that produced some of the very best of
that particular style of music. His compositions line the books students from middle
school through college and beyond study note-for-note. Still, promoting this tenor player
saying, “That stuff is too weird for me,” or, “This crowd is not the kind of crowd you
This musician has a mystique, a persona that often dominates the music. In his
New Jersey high school, the slang term for something strange was, “As weird as Wayne”
Shorter was a “Space Astronaut.” However, everything Shorter has done musically has
been in the name of progress. Shorter meets the same hostility that all musicians and
artists face when presenting something that goes against the stand. His struggle is the
same as Claudio Monteverdi’s when he applied the seconda practica in madrigals like
“Cruda Amarilli,” as the epic battle between Viennese music critic Eduard Hanslick and
the Brahmsians against the Wagnerites, and the infamous receptions of the music of Igor
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Stravinsky and of Arnold Schoenberg. Even jazz music went through this same battle
numerous times. Bebop rebelled against the big band era and avant-garde (affectionately
called the “New Thing”), headed by Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor. Another member
of the jazz avant-garde, the venerable John Coltrane, rebelled against all conventions of
musical structure. Today’s conflict stems from the jazz purists such as Wynton Marsalis
against jazz progressives. Until Shorter’s return to the acoustic setting, critics often
touted his creative works. His music, however, has continued to push the boundaries, and
his voice, under his own direction once again, is finally being heard.
established in the construction of all music explains many of the artistic choices his
current group has developed. Throughout his career, Shorter’s ingenious harmonic
progressions and formal constructions have helped him earn an iconic status in many jazz
circles. His music is reputed as difficult and idiosyncratic yet often appears on
recordings of other artists as proof of their own prowess in navigating the material. The
purpose of this thesis is to explore the inner workings of Shorter’s musical journey and
While the young Shorter had always been interested in creating the world around
him, he did not start this process with music. Born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1933, his
mind concentrated on art, film, and books (Mercer, passim). His main access to the
music world was when his father tuned into the radio show Make Believe Ballroom,
hosted by Martin Block, but Block mainly stayed with the big band popular music of the
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time (26). One night, the radio host hesitantly decided to branch out and play bebop
recordings, including Thelonious Monk’s “Off Minor” and songs by Bud Powell and
Charlie Parker (27). The music changed Shorter’s way of thinking immediately, but not
his interests in playing it. He and his older brother, Alan, would still at that point rather
The Shorter brothers’ creativity was always nourished by their mother, who often
did the boys’ chores for them so that they could continue to play with the water colors or
clay she had bought for them (Mercer 13). Shorter and his brother were allowed to work
in their own separate realm from the rest of the world. School was not a main interest,
but his artistic talent was recognizable, and as such, he was enrolled in Newark’s Arts
High School (22). That school would spawn musical personalities such as singer Sarah
Vaughan, trumpeter Woody Shaw and poet LeRoi Jones (who later changed his name to
Amiri Baraka).
The first instrument Shorter practiced in school, like many saxophone players,
was the clarinet, but he soon found aptitude for the saxophone, music theory, and ear
training (Mercer 30). According to his classmates, Shorter also had an aptitude for bebop
style and its eclectic mentality. Wayne Shorter and his brother delighted in both their
music and their own outsider status (33). The Shorter brothers thought and acted how
Wayne would later compose: pushing socially established boundaries and reveling in
After leaving high school, Shorter moved to New York (a pilgrimage made by
many aspiring jazz musicians) but his intention was to earn the education of both the jazz
1
Alan Shorter was a serviceable trumpet player and even appeared on his brother’s Blue Note record The
All Seeing Eye. The two played together throughout high school, but Alan moved farther into the avant-
garde jazz scene than his younger brother ever really considered.
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clubs and New York University. Just as Shorter had graduated and was getting
acclimated to the jazz world, he was drafted into the military (Mercer 53). It was
peacetime, but for the promising saxophonist, “going into the army meant the River Styx,
so [he] was playing like it was the last time” (54). After a successful stint with the army
(he was asked to stay on as a sharp shooting instructor but rejected the offer), he returned
to New York. There, he met, practiced, and absorbed ideas from John Coltrane and
discovered that they both played out of technique books written for string instruments.
Coltrane, who was playing with Miles Davis’ group at the time, wanted to pursue his own
projects and urged the aspiring young tenor to call the enigmatic trumpeter and ask for a
job. Davis was offended and profanely said ‘no,’ yet it would only be a few years later
that Davis himself would be making the recruiting call. The rejection by Davis did little
to deter Shorter (who was beginning to earn a reputation and received the nickname the
“Newark Flash”) from playing and composing as his first opportunity with a jazz icon
In 1959, the “Newark Flash” auditioned and won a job with Maynard Ferguson’s
Big Band, due in part to an introduction by Ferguson’s piano player and Shorter’s friend
and future bandmate of seventeen years, Joe Zawinul (Mercer 62). This gig, however,
was destined to be only temporary as Shorter, Ferguson and bandleader of the Jazz
Messengers, Art Blakey, all knew that Shorter was a small group saxophonist, not just
another horn in a big band (65). At the Toronto Jazz Festival on July 24, 1959, Blakey
managed to pry away his future musical director one month after Shorter joined
Shorter would ultimately spend five years with Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, and as
previously mentioned, would receive the moniker of musical director due to his prolific,
with Abdullah Ibn Buhaina (Blakey’s assumed name after converting to Islam), most of
which, even from the beginning of his stay with the group, included songs composed by
the saxophonist. The ever-changing lineup would feature such jazz luminaries as
trumpeters Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard, trombonist Curtis Fuller, pianists Walter
Davis, Jr., Bobby Timmons and Cedar Walton, bassists Jymie Merritt and Reggie
Workman, along with the legendary Blakey on drums. The Messengers were the first
group of professional musicians that would play Shorter’s elite compositions the way he
envisioned them. This ensemble, the true first stop in Shorter’s illustrious career, allowed
Two weeks after Shorter’s initial recording with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers on
Africaine (Nov. 10, 1959, though not released for another 20 years), the Messengers
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recorded a live album in Stockholm in which the drummer announced a new tune that
was “hot off the griddle” (Goldsher 61). The song, “Lester Left Town,” is prototypical of
Shorter’s early writing style, though the music was focused on the nostalgic feel of the
early jazz pioneers. The genesis of his career-long experimentation manifests here in the
relationship of the melody and the harmony. Chromaticism and abstract harmonic
movements (in comparison to the established rules of harmony in Western music and
jazz) in both of these aspects illustrates the composer’s emphasis on an aural depiction of
a mental image. Shorter dedicated to the piece to the late Lester Young, who had died in
March of that year, and composed his melody around Young’s famous swinging style,
Shorter’s use of visual imagery in the music, a skill that would dominate most of his
compositions, particularly his later works, is obvious in the Messenger’s U.S. recording
of the song released on March 6, 1960, a Blue Note Records album entitled The Big Beat.
The form of the piece is in the standard AABA song form, but Shorter has
doubled the typical number of measures used from 8 to 16. The song begins with a
chromatic descent from a D to a G and emits a bouncy, light emotion that establishes the
tone and impression of the music from the first downbeat (Example 1.1). Shorter’s
apparent love for chromaticism is noticeable even at this early point in his playing career.
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The opening riff, a technique tracing back to the Lester Young’s early career in Kansas
City with groups such as Count Basie’s band, includes only three intervallic jumps larger
than a half step: the pick up and the last two notes. The chordal harmonies Shorter
chooses for the first eight bars are nothing out of the ordinary. The first three measures
comprise a minor ii-V-i progression (Dm7b5-G7-Cm7), and the fourth chord of the four-
measure pattern moves down a minor third to an Am7b5, setting up the repeat of the minor
After repeating the riff twice, Shorter uses an arpeggiated line to emphasize the
third four-bar phrase of the A section. Measures nine through twelve of this part of the
tune begin to demonstrate the harmonic talents of the young tenor player. The chord
moves from the Am7b5 in the eighth bar down by a minor 3rd again to an Fm7 chord in the
ninth measure. This is followed with a leap to a Cbm7, emphasizing the diminished fifth
or tritone. This technique, the tritone substitution, was commonplace during this time
jazz history.2 The composer uses the Cbm7 substitution as a prolongation of the Fm7 and
as the link between the two before a descending chromatic chord progression of E7-Ebm7-
2
A tritone substitution is a technique in which the improviser plays the scale that starts on the diminished
fifth above the root of the written chord in order to facilitate improvisation on a larger number of altered
chord tones from the actual chord and creates a solo outside the normal changes. This technique often
works as a chromatic link in a ii-V-I chord progression. In the ii-V-I tritone substitution, the dominant is
replaced with the chord based on the diminished fifth, allowing the descending chromatic motion (e.g., Cm7
– F7 – BbMaj7 Cm7 – B7 – BbMaj7). Shorter’s use of the tritone substitution does not follow this rule.
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D7#9. Shorter has taken the descending chromatic motif from the opening riff and
transposed it into the chord changes. Shorter accents the beginning of the chromatic
descent by writing a note in the melody that sounds strongly against the chord
progression. On the upbeat of three in the tenth measure, Shorter (and Lee Morgan on
trumpet in the recording) plays a concert Eb against the written dominant Fb7 chord, the
major seventh interval rather than the indicated minor (Example 1.2). To accentuate the
dissonance further, he approaches this note via an ascending perfect fourth. Given the
way the line is written, with the Eb as the peak note of the melodic movement, the
The final chord of the third four-measure section uses the tritone substitution once again,
and again Shorter bucks the traditional usage of the technique. The movement from a
D7#9 to an AbMaj7 sets up another descending minor third interval to begin the final four
measures of the A section. Shorter uses the interval of a third seven times in the melodic
phrase, and the framing of the measures by the use of the interval in the chord changes
The final four measures of the A section not only extend the arpeggiated idea
from the previous four measures but also begin the rhythmic transition into the B section,
or bridge, by introducing notes of longer duration than a half note. Prior to that point, the
A section contained one half note and one eighth note tied to a half note while the final
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four measures have four notes that are at least a half note in length. The presence and
prominence of the longer notes strengthens the argument for the rhythmic transition into
the bridge. The B section features ten of these rhythmic durations, including the first
note (omitting the pickup), which is held for seven-and-a-half beats. The chord changes
are reasonably standard with a major ii-V-I progression in both the first and second
The transition from the fourteenth measure into both endings presents a
remarkable sequential and intervallic movement. The first ending contains a ii-V-I in
AbMaj7, which requires a chromatic movement from the A7b5 in measure fourteen to the
Bbm7 in measure fifteen, and creates a tritone intervallic leap back to the beginning of the
A section (AbMaj7 to Dm7b5). For the second and subsequently final iteration of the A
section following the bridge, Shorter changes the final ii-V-I to the tonal center of Eb
major. This change allows a minor third intervallic movement in the fourteenth to
fifteenth measures and creates a major second transition to the bridge: EbMaj7-Fm7.
Shorter’s juxtaposition of the two intervallic types, the highly dissonant chromatic and
diminished fifth, against the major and minor third, structurally eases the transition.
beginning with slower, tertian movement and transitioning back into the A section with
rapid chromatic ideas. As mentioned above, the first important note of the bridge lasts
nearly two measures, and an intervallic movement that is smaller than a minor third does
not appear until measure twenty-four of the section. The first half-step movement of the
demonstrate secundal movement following another major ii-V-I. The chord progression
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is exactly the same as the second ending from the A section, but it lasts three measures
rather than two. The Eb dominant chord in the third measure begins a whole-step
descending line that mirrors the chromatic descents located in the A section. From
enabling Shorter to create another ii-V-i (though the one chord is minor) in the key of G.
Shorter has once again used the melody purposefully to clash with the chordal
structure, yet continues melodic sense when viewing the line horizontally. In the twenty-
second measure, Shorter repeats the G that he had played in the twenty-first, but the
location in the chord is drastically different. With the secundal descent in the harmonic
changes, this note recreates the diminished fifth tonality. The pitch’s location adds a
subtle dissonance for the listener as it resides at the beginning of the line, only a quarter
Following the ii-V-I progressions use as a period on the end of the harmonic
sequence, Shorter returns to descending chromatic chord changes. Similar to the use of
whole step motion down to the ii-V-I, measures twenty-six through twenty-eight feature a
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descent of Em7b5-Eb7-D7-Dbm7, and the final chord serves as the supertonic of a ii-V-I in
the key of Cb major. Shorter continues his use of the standard jazz compositional
The final measures of the bridge, in contrast, feature the supertonic to dominant as
the phrase itself. Measures thirty and thirty-one of the B section contain a ii-V-I in the
key of Ab major, and after a half-step movement down to a Gm7b5 in measure thirty-two,
the tonic becomes the next supertonic in the series. Interestingly, the composer manages
to conclude his bridge with a ii-V-I in Ab, which is incidentally the same chord
progression used to return to the top of the A section in the first ending. This movement
The melodic movement over the last four measures of the B section serves as a
transition back to the opening riff. Shorter changes the direction of the movement in
measures thirty-one and thirty-two by ascending to a G, the root of the chord, and then
descending into a sequential pattern. The last two measures of the bridge, along with the
fourth beat of measure thirty-two, focus on the movement of an ascending major second
followed by a minor third. This sequence furthers the idea behind the “turnaround” back
to the A section.
Wayne Shorter, does demonstrate a number of techniques he uses extensively in his later
writings. He explores the juxtaposition of textures and forms, such as the chromatic
melody and harmonies, and places the same notes in different contexts to illustrate the
chordal motion. The melodic movement is not nearly as oblique as many of his later
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tunes, but his intense use of chromaticism in both the melody and chord changes, his
expansion of the standard form, and his use of conventional jazz compositional ideas
(i.e., tritone substitutions and ii-V-I progressions) in unconventional ways, are all staples
The inclusion of Curtis Fuller on trombone in 1962 not only expanded Blakey’s
horn line and hard bop sound, but also the breadth of Shorter’s compositional options.
Prior to the introduction of the third horn, the composer, who according to Fuller was
prolifically writing two to three songs each week but abandoning most, could not fully
voice his chords in the melodies (Goldsher 63). Shorter immediately put his newly
One year after Fuller’s recorded debut with the group on Mosaic (Oct. 2, 1961
for the Blue Note label), Shorter submitted a composition for their next recording:
Caravan (Oct. 23, 1962 for Riverside/OJC). Shorter’s thickly orchestrated “This Is for
Albert” served as the tenor player’s tribute to bebop pianist Earl “Bud” Powell (Goldsher
62). The reasoning behind the title of this dedication is really only known to Shorter, but
the tune itself serves as a strident chordal exercise for composer and band alike. This
movement.
Following eight-measure introductions for both the bass and then the piano, the
form is standard AABA song style with each phrase eight measures in length. The A
section of this piece is broken into two separate four-measure ideas. The first division
features a unison line in all the horns, while the second half splits into chords with the
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trumpet on the top note, trombone on the bottom, and Shorter in the middle. The
composition begins simply, a trend carried over from the introduction. Shorter only uses
four chords in the first half of the A section, but not surprisingly, he manages to work in
his personal harmonic ideas. The chromaticism of the chord changes (GMaj7-AbMaj7#11-
The opening melodic statement of “This Is for Albert” focuses around an “off-
beat” rhythmic idea and a four-note phrase, the top note of which is repeated. Shorter
writes the chords to fit the melody, hence the presence of the augmented fourth (sharp
eleven) in the second measure to accommodate the repeated D over the AbMaj7. Similar
to the writing in “Lester Left Town,” the intervals in the melody are close, as the minor
third is the largest leap in either direction. The D dominant seventh chord in the fourth
measure acts in a variety of ways. It is the dominant chord to the tonic GMaj7 from the
first measure and it is the tonic chord in the V-I progression from the third to the fourth.
This chord also parallels the heavily altered D7#5(b9) that concludes the A section. A D
chord serves as the ending of the B section as well, placing a specific emphasis on this
The second half of the A section begins with homorhythmic chordal harmony in
the melody, but the chord changes played in the rhythm section are not overly complex.
Shorter follows the D7 in measure four with a descending whole step from to Cm7, which
four chords to speed up the harmonic rhythm behind the chordal texture in Blakey’s front
line by changing the harmonies every two beats. The final movement from the Ab major
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chord to the altered D7#5(b9) adds a tritone movement, with Shorter’s technique of writing
In terms of the melodic chords used in the A section, Shorter writes only ternary
triads in root or in second inversion except for the final chord. In the first two chords, the
placement of the trombone within the chord determines the inversion written. For the
second two chords, Shorter writes them in root position so that Fuller would play the
seventh and root of the F7 rather than the thirteenth (sixth) and the seventh. Shorter
avoids the upper extensions of the chords in this manner as they do not fit into the
traditional Jazz Messenger style, which is closer to Rhythm and Blues than the ethereal
sounds that voicing a melody so far away from the chordal structure often creates.
After following the sequential melody through its second iteration, the
repeats the same movement in the final measure. The second chord of the pattern,
however, changes from its first instance to the second in the trombone. The seventh
basic V-I chord progression. The tritone movement in the chord changes, coupled with
the trombone decent (this time descending to an F#) complicates the established harmonic
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pattern from measures five through seven. Over the D7#5(b9), the chord voiced contains an
Eb in the melody, a C in the tenor harmony, and the above mentioned F# (enharmonically
a Gb). The chord highlights the third, seventh, and flatted ninth, but may also be
interpreted as a diminished triad built upon the seventh, which is flatted in this chord
(subtonic). While a subtonic diminished chord is not necessarily out of the ordinary,
ending a phrase (specifically the A section of a song form) with this chord most assuredly
is. This chord’s link into the bridge explains this bizarre ending to the A section. The
initial chord of the B section is composed of Eb, Gb, and Bb, the same chord that was
before the C diminished sonority. What is noticeable is the presence of two of the same
chord tones: Eb and Gb. The only real movement between the chords is Bb to C and its
return. Shorter has managed to move beyond the traditional jazz and classical chordal
movement and explains it away with a simple secundal idea. While this motion is
counteractive to the standards of western theory, there is logic in the idea that emphasizes
movement in the horn line. The chord changes in the B section are not any more erratic
than the changes found in the A section, but Shorter’s idea of using larger intervallic
leaps in between the V-I progressions continues. The first four measures of the bridge
interval. Measure nine’s Abm7 is a major third from measure eleven’s Em7 and the Db7 in
measure ten is a minor third from measure eleven and a major third from measure twelve
(A7). The A7 then changes positions and assumes the role of dominant to the chord in the
first half of measure thirteen: DMaj7. Shorter completes this measure with a turnaround
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ending to the B section, moving the band down from a Bm7 in the second half of measure
thirteen to the GMaj7 in the beginning of the A section’s reiteration. The D7b9 as the final
chord of the bridge mirrors the final chord of the A section with the exception of the
augmented fifth.
In terms of the melodic line, which due to the homorhythmic persistence should
from the A section give way rhythmically and harmonically to a dramatic climax in the
eleventh measure. The presence of the quarter-note triplet in the tenth measure, a
rhythmic idea that has not surfaced thus far in the tune, draws immediate attention as
Shorter builds to the GMaj7 chord in whole notes on top of the Em7. The F# played by
the trumpet is the peak note of the piece, and the openness of the chord itself (a seventh
chord in root position omitting the third) contrasts the two consecutive first inversion
heightens the significance of this three-measure phrase by writing this idea as the tag
ending to the piece.3 Shorter elongates the whole-note chord in the final measure so that
3
A tag ending is an added group of measures to the end a song used as a conclusion similar to a coda, but is
often an exact repetition of material used in the melody.
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The bridge of “This Is for Albert” features a greater number of dominant seventh
chords, many of which are in third inversion. This voicing places the dissonance between
the trombone and tenor saxophone parts and allows the melodic line in the trumpet to
soar over the top. The third inversion seventh chord idea takes precedence in the second
half of the B section: only two chords (the penultimate and the first, which is held over
from the twelfth measure) are expressed in root position. The purpose of the penultimate
chord is to draw attention to the trumpet’s role as the melodic retransition back into the A
section. This is an E minor chord in root position over an Am7 chord change with the
trumpet voicing the B as the fifth. That specific note serves as both the ninth of the chord
expressed in the rhythm section and the melodic idea coming to a close. The next chord
also has the trumpet on a B above the staff, but the chord has changed to a D7b9, and the
instrumental harmonies present a B7 in third inversion. The band returns to the harmonic
texture of the second half of the bridge and moves the trumpet’s B from the ninth scale
degree to the thirteenth. Shorter presents this note for two measures as an upper
extension and then plays this same note again, displaced by an octave, as the unison B at
Rhythmically, the bridge has no sequential ideas, a stark contrast to the A section.
Shorter uses harmonic motion and heavy syncopation to draw attention to the most
important chords in the line. As mentioned above, the ascending triplet moves the
melodic line up to the GMaj7(omit 3) in the eleventh measure. A drum flurry in this
measure from Blakey accents the importance here as well. Coming out of this chord in
measure twelve, Shorter uses a descending sixteenth-note run to maintain the energy after
Blakey’s solo. The other chord the composer wishes to accent (outside of the final chord
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second beat of measure fourteen. It is essentially the same harmonies as the chord before
it with the exception of the descending half step in the trumpet, but it is expressed on the
beat as opposed to off. The previous three chords are all presented on an upbeat, yet this
chord fools the listener by waiting a full beat of rest and entering strongly on the second
beat. This slight pause serves as the pivot point for the rhythmic dynamic in the final
Before returning to the head (the melody of the tune) to end the song, Shorter has
written a shout chorus that retains many of the elements of the bridge. It is essentially an
alternative melodic idea for all horns over the same chord changes. The changes used
here are slightly simplified in that there are fewer alterations, but the general movement
is the same as the original chords. Often in larger ensemble music, the shout chorus can
be the loudest section of the music, but in “This Is for Albert,” its usage creates a
different effect. The soothing emotions emitted in this section are created through the
wave-like motion in the chordal movement and transition well into the main melody.
The A section moves up in pitch, as a group, and then descends from the climax which,
parallel to the bridge section, is in the third measure. The B section of the shout chorus
does evoke more energy in the syncopated and repeated chords, particularly in the
thirteenth measure. The natural phrasing is similar to that of the previous segment, but
the motion is less dynamic and relies more on the rhythm to accomplish the emotional
Like the majority of the melody, the entire shout chorus is written
homorhythmically and chordally, but several of the voicings Shorter elects to write in this
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section are not as conventional as those harmonics in the melody. Shorter begins with a
quartal/quintal chord that accents the fifth, ninth, and thirteenth extensions of the written
G major. The use of this chord is to intensify the dissonance between the two lower
instruments and create an easy stepwise movement in the upper two voices to the next
chord: a B minor in first inversion. The voice leading in both the shout section and in the
tune itself minimizes large jumps to create the intricate progression in the chords. The
largest intervallic leap in the shout section (the trombone with a descending fifth) helps
create the most bizarrely constructed chord of the piece. Shorter writes the trumpet on an
F natural, the saxophone on a C natural, and the trombone on F#. This voicing places the
interval of a perfect fourth between Shorter and Freddie Hubbard (the trumpet player in
this recording) and a tritone from Shorter to Curtis Fuller. The interval of a major
seventh between trumpet and trombone further complicates a chord that contains the
third, flatted third, and flatted seventh scale degrees. This highly dissonant chord
contrasts not only the flowing feel of the shout section but also the conclusion of its A
section. The chord here is the same in the tenor and trombone, but the trumpet plays an E
natural. This voicing makes the chord a supertonic half-diminished seventh chord
omitting the third scale degree to the D7#5(b9), which is a chord that is much easier to
New Jersey and at NYU, progressed quickly in the Jazz Messengers and began to
foreshadow his future works. “This Is for Albert” especially looks forward to Shorter’s
days in the jazz-rock fusion band Weather Report, which he co-led, and his own groups,
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where the accompaniments are through-composed and dictated rather than left up to the
improvising musicians. In a way, this is the composer’s first step toward treating the
instruments in jazz as his own orchestra playing “a soundtrack for the imagination”
(Mercer 142).
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Following his tenure with the Jazz Messengers and during his time playing with
Miles Davis, Shorter led a number of recordings, eleven to be exact, for Blue Note
records. He had become familiar with the label during his tenure with Blakey’s band as
the drummer recorded seventeen albums with Blue Note in those five years. Shorter
could take his compositions in a different direction away from the rhythm and blues-
influenced style of jazz of the Messengers and towards his experimental ideas with form
and harmonic progressions would finally be under his name completely and would
enhance his reputation. During his time with Blue Note, Shorter was never able to lead a
group of his own out on the road, as Miles Davis quickly snatched up the tenor player to
Playing with Davis, however, did provide ample time for Shorter to organize
prominent musicians for his sessions such as pianist Herbie Hancock and bass player Ron
Carter from Davis’s band, McCoy Tyner (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), and Elvin Jones
(drums) from John Coltrane’s working groups, and his friends from the Messengers (Lee
Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Curtis Fuller, and Reggie Workman). Shorter also tapped into
future talents that would play in Davis’s electric bands and his own group with Joe
Zawinul (Weather Report): John McLaughlin (electric guitar), Chick Corea (synthesizer
and drums), Miroslav Vitous (bass), Jack DeJohnette and Alphonse Mouzon (drums), and
Airto Moreira (percussion). With these illustrious names in the jazz world, Shorter could
write, perform, and record a vast number of what would become standard tunes played
today in jazz clubs around the world. In The Real Book, the tune compilation that is the
cornerstone from which jazz musicians learn and perform, twenty-six of Shorter’s
25
compositions appear. Of those twenty-six, fifteen were recorded on the Blue Note label
In early August of 1964, Shorter entered the studio for his second recording with
Blue Note: Juju. For this session, Shorter recruited in McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman,
and Elvin Jones to fill out the rhythm section. Juju contains a number of critically
acclaimed songs including, “Deluge,” “House of Jade,” “Mahjong,” and “Yes Or No.”
However, the title track, “Juju,” is the most experimental and innovative of all the songs
on the recording. Its awkward chord progression and aggressive melody have drawn
Shorter to play this song even with his current touring quartet discussed in chapter 7.
although no boundaries are established. Each melodic phrase is four measures long and
immediately repeated. The form of the piece and its 3/4 time signature hearken back to
the waltz or minuet, but the melody is not one that is usually accepted as danceable. The
first section flashes back to modal jazz concepts that began in 1959 with Miles Davis’s
Kind of Blue and progressed through the music of the avant-garde movement and John
Coltrane’s forays into energy jazz. Shorter writes only one chord for this first melodic
concept: B7#5 (Figure 2.1). The rhythmic line is an alternation between a quarter note and
an eighth note and is syncopated as the line starts on the upbeat of three in the pickup
measure.
This line contains both a riff and sequence concept, but what is so striking about the line
is the emphasis on particular scale degrees. The augmented chord here is not merely used
to explain an accidental in the melody. Shorter revels in the unsettling nature of the
raised fifth by ending his phrase on the note and making it a key part of the sequence.
The augmented fifth serves another purpose as well; it allows the melody and improvisers
to make use of the whole-tone scale. The whole-tone scale is a resource that was
Throughout the first eight measures, including the sixteenth-note run that serves as a lead
into the second, the whole-tone scale is used exclusively. The alternating flatted seventh
against the augmented fifth gives this piece the whole-tone characteristic, but the entire
line moves the idea down in a scalar fashion, outside of the one major third interval in the
penultimate note of the idea. The whole-tone sixteenth-note run as a lead into the second
section of the line is the last use of the scale in the piece, but the presence of the whole-
tone texture continues in other areas. While this run is only in Shorter’s own
ornamentation, his usage of the scale is a strong indication that this technique is intended
changes that encompass the first six measures and in strategic placement of important
notes in the melodic line. Starting with a Bb7#5, which is in itself a descending half step
from the B7#5 compromising the first third of the piece, the chord changes descend every
two measures though an A7 and Ab7 before dropping another major third interval to set up
a chromatic move from the Em7 to the FMaj7 at the beginning of the third section. The
27
harmonic movements here are logical, and the melody never strays into the higher
extensions of the chords, but the presence of the augmented fifth scale degree in the Bb7#5
leads to some confusion. The melody is strictly diatonic and only incorporates the root,
second, and third scale degrees during the two measures where the chord is prominent.
Shorter was probably looking at improvisation over the chord rather than the melody. By
augmenting the fifth, Shorter is accenting a note that will continue the whole-tone
tonality that he established in the beginning of the music. This same note, F#, will serve
as the thirteenth (sixth scale degree but read as an extension) in the next measure, a note
that does not work in the whole-tone pattern. With the increase in chromaticism and the
absence of extensions in this section, Shorter has used the first two bars and the
Melodically, like the previous and the following section, Shorter composes a riff-
like motif which he repeats. While the other two eight-bar phrases use a direct repetition
due to their chordal structure, this phrase moves somewhat sequentially in order to stay
within the written changes. The direction and rhythm mainly retain the piece’s style
between the first and second statements in this phrase, as the descending major third in
the harmonic progression does not allow for a perfect sequential idea. The half-step
harmonies and allows for the standard melodic motion of the third to the fifth, resolving
scale four measures prior, but the idea outlines the arpeggio of the AbMaj7 in measure
thirteen – further proof of the switch from the scalar whole-tone into chordal emphasis.
28
The melody begins the same, although this time it is on the seventh of the chord instead
of the root. The intervallic jump in the second and third beats of measure fourteen (Ab to
C) brings Shorter into position to repeat the accentuation of the descending half-step to B:
The final interval of the phrase is that of a minor seventh, a contrast to the minor
sixth that keeps the melody on all chord tones: fifth, flatted-seventh, and the root. The
conventionality of the melody makes this section the most logical of the three eight-
measure groups, but these melodic techniques carry over and continue to complicate the
piece.
The final eight-measure section features simple melodic ideas and minimal chord
changes similar to previous sections, but the chordal harmony in the final grouping
creates both melodic and improvisatory interest. Shorter changes chords every two
measures in the manner of the middle group, and he alternates here between an FMaj7
and a Bm7 developing a tritone movement. The melody features the increasing intervallic
perfect fourth, and finally a descending perfect fifth. Shorter is able to fit this melodic
motive into the unconventional harmonies by making the second chord minor. The
location of the melody, beginning on the ninth scale degree in the FMaj7 chord, actually
allows the final two notes (which move over the bar line that carries the chord change) to
play the third of the first chord and the flatted third of the second. The vacillation
between these two primary chordal textures makes “Juju” extremely appealing for
could elect to read the changes as they are, read the entire passage as one chord accenting
29
the upper extensions in the other, or possibly play them backwards relying solely on the
allows the performer to experiment with chromaticism, the whole-tone scale, and tritone
substitutions. Its triple-meter waltz-like figure offers another trait that can provide a
challenge for the soloist, forcing a reinterpretation of ideas originally created for a 4/4
time signature. The emotional feel of the music itself is uneasy at times, as it values
unconventional harmonies like the alternating tritone and ten measures featuring an
augmented fifth. “Juju”’s quirkiness makes this piece a favorite for musicians as it
provides a change of pace and an opportunity to stretch their ideas farther than many jazz
standards permit.
Four and a half months later, in Shorter’s next session for Blue Note records, the
saxophonist would record one of his most critically acclaimed albums: Speak No Evil.
Retaining only Elvin Jones on drums from the previous recording, Shorter draws upon
the help of two of his newest band mates with the Miles Davis band, Herbie Hancock and
Ron Carter. He also recruits Freddie Hubbard to fill out the front line of the group, but
on Shorter’s ballad, “Infant Eyes,” the trumpeter does not make an appearance. While
Shorter did write ballads during his time with the Blakey band, the drummer’s
“explosive” style was not as accommodating as the mood established with Davis’s group
(Cook 54). “Infant Eyes” was written for his daughter, Miyako, with then wife, Irene
Nakagami. Shorter’s claims that his inspiration came from the idea that “[he] saw all
infancy in Miyako’s eyes, everyone who’s ever been an infant. People reminisce about
past stuff and let it take over the present, but with every moment, you’re reborn” (Mercer
30
87). Shorter’s philosophical description of the music demonstrates that the level of
ABA form: a fairly conservative choice in terms of melodic content. The key difference
between “Infant Eyes” and the typical jazz ballad is the nine-measure phrase
construction. Shorter generally ends his melodies in the eighth measure of each grouping
and increases the duration of the final note, so as to move two beats into the ninth. By
keeping the same note in the eighth and ninth bars, Shorter can change chords and
As with all ballad tunes, the focus on the harmonic movement is crucial since the
musician has more time to think and embellish his ideas. For the most part, Shorter has
decided to forgo most of the standard harmonic movement outside of the occasional ii-V
or V-I progression. Shorter generally traces the harmonies around the lyricism of the
melody, often moving in major or minor seconds from one chord to the next. The first
nine chord progressions (one for each measure in the A phrase) feature one minor second
and three major second intervallic movements. That emphasis switches in the bridge
section to that of the minor second where it is used as six of nine possible intervallic
movements including the return to the A section. The chromatic motive in the B section
reinforces the sequential motives that serve as the basis for the melody in this section,
while the A section’s chordal movement works in conjunction with the more dynamic
line.
31
unaccompanied pickup measure into the tenor saxophone melody. While there is no
chord written over this pickup, there are enough similarities to the final measure of the
bridge to assume that the composer is looking ahead to the D7b9. Since the nineteenth
measure of the music serves as the transition into the A section, it would make sense that
this measure works in a similar manner (Example 2.5). In the transcribed version of
Shorter’s recording on Speak No Evil from the Artist Transcriptions Series The New Best
of Wayne Shorter published by Hal Leonard his ornamentations are featured.4 He focuses
on the flatted seventh of the assumed chord and then slides chromatically up to the first
note of the phrase. The idea of concentrating on the seventh scale degree to begin the
phrase is continued as Shorter plays an F in the Gm7 chord. The composer emphasizes
the descending major second interval in the harmony by moving to an Fm7 and an EbMaj7
the recording provides the support for the saxophonist’s written interpretation. In a
slower piece such as this one, it is stylistically normal for the triplet figures to drag
slightly behind the beat; however, Shorter takes liberal advantage of this technique,
enhancing the anticipation in the audience, but continues to draw out the music beyond
its normal standards. As for the melodic notes chosen in comparison to the changes,
there is an extensive usage of the ninth scale degree as it is emphasized in the fourth
4
All the pitches in the Artists Transcription Series are pedagogical transcriptions and thus are written in the
tenor or soprano saxophone’s transposed Bb to replicate what Shorter actually played. For the purpose of
this thesis, all musical examples are presented in concert pitch.
32
measure, and the first use of the thirteenth in the music. Both of these scale degrees will
In the fifth measure, Shorter adds the tritone (by now clearly established as a
ninth. The dramatic jump in the chords is echoed in the melody, but it mainly provides
the composer with altered melodic tones. Though the written chord places the
significance on the augmented ninth, the melody stays on the flatted ninth for all but the
final sixteenth note of the measure. If there is one alteration to the ninth scale degree, it
is automatically assumed that both possible alterations (flatted ninth and sharped ninth)
are present, but it seems odd that the harmonic changes reflect the modification that is not
stressed in the measure. Shorter avoids the clashing tendency of the note by using it as a
lead into the next measure, where it serves as the major seventh scale degree in the
GbMaj7.
Measure six employs the triplet figure once again and creates a quartal
arpeggiated movement that emphasizes the third, thirteenth, and ninth scale degrees.
Shorter introduces linear quartal movement in the previous measure in the Bb to F and
draws upon this theme for this measure as well. Changing chords behind longer notes
here again accents a peculiar scale degree. The Ab at the conclusion of the sixth measure,
following the half-step descent in the harmonic changes to an F7sus chord, moves from the
ninth scale degree to the flatted third. As there is a Bb in the previous measure, Shorter is
correct in using that note as a suspension in the next. However, due to its brief mention
in measure six and the delayed appearance in measure seven, the Bb might sound
questionable when it is first played. Placing significance into the flatted third scale
33
degree appears to establish an alternative tonal center around this note. The presence of
the chord with the suspension and the melodic notes in this and the preceding measure
(an Em7 in measure eight) make up a Bb minor seventh chord. The idea of the melody
built around the chord tones of the suspended fourth is reiterated on the next use of the
suspension in measure nine. That measure’s Bb7sus is undermined by the Eb minor chord,
which begins on the pickup of the previous measure. Shorter’s roundabout use of
harmonic organization fits in well with the overall brooding mood of the piece as the
The final measure of the A section provides a fascinating set of chordal alterations
to move into the bridge. The tenth measure, Bb#5(#9), highlights both an augmented fifth
and an augmented ninth, which provide the voice leading into the EbMaj7 in the next
measure. Aside from the natural dominant-to-tonic pull, these alterations provide leading
tones to the third and seventh scale degrees. The leading tone to the fifth scale degree is
also assumed with the augmented ninth alteration, as this indicates the presence of the
flatted ninth as well. The augmented fifth serves to accommodate the first of the two
sixteenth-note pickups to the bridge. The end result of this pull toward the next measure
allows the Bbs that conclude the first two phrases to have vastly different emotional
The harmonic movement in the bridge sets up a pattern that alternates between
that the number of chromatic moves between the V-I sections decreases with each set.
EMaj7/Eb) followed by the V-I to a CbMaj7. This next section consists of two minor
seconds, both descending, and another V-I. This second dominant to tonic progression
returns to the Eb as the tonal center, only this time, Shorter writes it as a suspension. The
final chord change of the bridge is a minor second that moves the Ebsus into the D7b9,
which is the dominant of the Gm7 that begins the return of the A section. The result of
the harmonic pattern is the increased presence of the upper extensions of the chords.
There are four specific occasions in the bridge where the melodic note is on a scale
degree of the flatted ninth or higher held out for a duration equal to or longer than a half-
note.
measure twelve (Example 2.4). Following an eighth-note triplet set in beat four of the
previous measure, the melodic line concludes on a Db over the FbMaj7/Eb, a prominent
display of the thirteenth scale degree. Shorter also sets up a rhythmic motif that will
precede many of the significant notes in the bridge. Throughout “Infant Eyes,” the triplet
figure is followed by a note of substantial value, and thus this figure anticipates important
structural melodic notes. This idea appears again at the end of the thirteenth measure
leading into the fourteenth as Shorter writes another triplet (using the same two notes at
the beginning but changing the third to prevent an intervallic leap of an octave) that
The next two uses of the triplet technique hearken back to Shorter’s treatment of
the four-three suspension in the A section. Measure sixteen features a Bb7sus chord with
the melody containing the root. Despite this apparent emphasis on the Bb as the tonal
center, the sixteenth-note triplets that precede the note illustrate that Shorter is actually
stressing the minor chord built on the fourth scale degree. The soloist plays an Eb, Gb,
and a D (the third, fifth, and ninth scale degrees in CbMaj7 written for that measure)
which, when added to the dotted half-note duration Bb in measure sixteen, creates an
Ebm7 chord. Measures seventeen and eighteen reiterate this dynamic as the triplet
highlights an Ab, Cb, and Gb that lead to the subsequent Eb in the next measure. The Eb is,
once again, the root of the written harmonic change: Eb7sus. The composer combines
altered chordal extensions with a minor suspension by holding the Eb (the last note of the
bridge) but shifting the chord down the half-step to the D7b9. This last motion before the
return to the A section not only moves the chord into position as
the dominant of the Gm7, but switches the Eb from the root to the flatted ninth.
36
Throughout the bridge, Shorter has toyed with the listener as his chord changes
and melody work in prescribed but unanticipated fashions. The pronounced use of the
upper extensions of the chords, altered tones, and situation of the melody against what is
written into the chord changes demonstrates the ethereal and spiritual idealism Shorter
elicits as his theme and inspiration. Each note is “reborn” with a different connotation
The nature of a ballad such as “Infant Eyes” allows Shorter to paint with different
colors in his compositional palette. He uses techniques similar to those found in the other
pieces presented as examples in this study, but their presence emits emotions unlike those
of the vivacious “Lester Left Town,” the majestic “This is for Albert,” or even the
eccentric “Juju.” This song helps the listener see through the music toward what the
composer was imagining during the writing process. The melody is delicate as it courses
over the carefully chosen harmonic changes. Shorter’s composition can move from
affirmation to questioning with a single subtle move in any of the instruments playing the
tune. This sense of graceful wonder draws the music toward his intent to portray a
The lofty ideals that inspired “Infant Eyes” illustrated the composer’s romantic
leanings, but for Shorter’s most famous and recorded song, the music only needed to be
“a simplified vehicle for improvisation, mainly geared for club audiences” (Artist
Transcription Series 1st ed. 36). Shorter’s “Footprints” (1966) is his quintessential
composition. Though he first released the piece on Blue Note 4232 “Adam’s Apple”
featuring the talents of Herbie Hancock, Reggie Workman, and drummer Joe Chambers,
37
it was subsequently recorded by the Miles Davis Quintet on “Miles Smiles” and with
Shorter’s current touring quartet (Cook 257). The song is used as the title for both the
first recording of the quartet entitled Footprints Live! and for a two CD collection of his
“greatest hits.” Shorter’s biographer Michelle Mercer elected to name her book after this
specific song as well. Needless to say, “Footprints” has thus far defined the legacy of the
blues form.
In the jazz world, there is often a debate about the time signature of the piece.
Many versions of the music are written in 6/4 while several other publishers maintain that
3/4 is correct.5 Both arguments have their merits. The 3/4 time signature is easier to read
as the waltz figure is more familiar to musicians. The triple meter also avoids the
awkward 5:3 quintuplet that is prominent in the 6/4 version. The 3/4, however, still
features this rhythm as a somewhat less awkward 4:3 that lasts over an entire measure.
The 6/4 time signature does give merit to the idea that Shorter wrote the piece in twelve-
bar blues form rather than in twenty-four measures. Fortunately, in Shorter’s biography,
the frontispiece is a handwritten copy of “Footprints” revealing his intent that the song be
performed in 6/4. Shorter’s original draft also shows that the piece was originally meant
5
This quarrel is a very similar to a discrepancy about the true time signature of Miles Davis’s “All Blues”
from Kind of Blue. Many jazz musicians still argue about whether the piece is to be played in 3/4 or in 6/8.
38
Though this introduction (which does not seem to fit with the mood of the rest of
the tune) is not recorded on any of the major issues of the work, Shorter retains the
original version’s bass figure that is written immediately after. This one-measure vamp
on the C minor chord is repeated extensively and modulates sequentially with the chord
changes. On the whole, this ostinato-like figure appears in the bass and piano for ten of
the twelve measures in the melody. The motif itself is a simple outline of the chord
played. The bass player begins with a pick-up eighth-note G followed by three ascending
quarter notes of C, G, and C (Examples 2.6 and 2.7). A half note tied to an eighth note
holds the Eb, completing the chord, and leads to the final note that serves as the pick-up
note to the next measure. When the chord changes to F minor in the fifth bar of the head,
the notes change to F, Ab, and C accordingly. Above the repetitive and hypnotic bass
ostinato, the pianist plays only a triad followed by a staccato on the root of the chord.
The chord (scale degrees eleven, flatted seven, and nine from the bottom up) generates
39
what is essentially a Bb triad in first inversion. Its placement in the measure (an eighth
note on the upbeat of three tied to a half note) permits the chord to sound against both the
C briefly and the Eb in the bass and left hand of the piano. When stacked, these notes
focus on the sustained dissonance between the Eb, the lowest note in the chord, and the D,
the highest. In this manner, the chord played here is interpreted as a Bb11 over the
measure’s Cm7. The subtonic relationship resolves with the staccato C on the sixth beat
and the G on the upbeat of six in the bass. With this vamp, Shorter uses a technique
similar to the rocking motion between two chords, the unconventional relationship found
at the beginning of the bridge in “Infant Eyes” or the third eight-bar section of “Juju,” as
he manipulates the tonality within the measure between the tonic and the subtonic.
complexities. Jazz musicians, particularly in the bebop era with Charlie Parker, Dizzy
Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk, were known for taking the standard blues concept and
composition, he gives the illusion that the progression is working as it should until the
ninth measure where he intends to disarm both the soloist and the audience. The first
eight measures harmonically are the standard four bars on the root (Cm9), followed by
two measures on the subdominant (Fm9), and then the return back to the root for two
more measures.
As previously mentioned, the ninth and tenth measures are nothing like the simple
minor chords presented thus far. The idea to use a ii-V harmonic movement in the blues
is not really an experimental gamble for the tenor player, but jumping to the tritone
(F#m9) instead of the expected dominant (G) is. Shorter accelerates the harmonic motion
40
to two chords per measure and uses the ii-V as a turnaround. The F# half-diminished
chord moves to a B7#9#5 to conclude measure ten, then repeats the ii-V on E7#9 and A7alt
(meaning that the ninth, eleventh and fifth/thirteenth are all altered: b9 and #9, #11, and
b
13). This last chord, however, is highly debatable and appears differently among many
publications of the music. The sixth edition of The Real Book has the chord as A7b5#9
(The Real Book 144). The Artist Transcription Series depicts the chord as just an
A7(Artist 2nd Ed.). Even the Aebersold play-along series provides two possibilities: an
A#9#5 and (parenthetically) an Eb7#11 (Aebersold Vol. 33). With a number of different
examples, one could question why there are so many choices. Melodically, Shorter only
uses the flatted seventh, raised ninth, and the thirteenth, so fitting the chord to the melody
does not explain everything the improviser could play with the other extensions. One
possibility is that the purpose of these alterations is to lead this chord into the final
iteration of the tonic Cm9 in measures eleven and twelve. Shorter’s chordal extensions in
the A7alt (Bb, C, Eb, and F) are equivalent to the flatted seventh, root, flatted third and the
eleventh of the next chord, all of which (with the possible exception of the F) are
significant chord tones. This could be the best way Shorter can relate the period of
“Footprints” is even more puzzling. It almost seems as if the publisher knew of Shorter’s
preference for the tritone and the tritone substitution and created his own addition. As
this is unlikely, one needs to look at the purpose of the Aebersold series to determine the
probable causes of this parenthetical harmonic proposal. First, as this series is designed
as an educational tool, the Eb7#11 is much easier for a student to read than an A7#9#5 (as it
41
is presented in this version). The aspiring improviser only needs to think of one
alteration (or the Lydian scale) as opposed to the many chordal differentiations of the
altered original. Aside from the increased readability made possible by this change, the
natural tendencies of the tritone substitution, i.e., emphasizing the extension of the
written chord, are even further accented. The notes in the Eb7#11 scale, when compared to
the scale from the A7#9#5, create a series of notes that, in order, imply numerous extended
scale degrees: tritone-#5-b7-1-b9-#9-3 and the return to the tritone. The scale hits all the
Given the complexity of the chordal structure in those two measures, it should
come as no surprise that, outside of the initial uncomfortable five over three quintuplet,
the melody is similarly intricate. The main thematic idea is similar to a riff adapted to
blues changes. The first instance accents the flatted seventh scale degree with four
repeated Bbs followed by the root and an eighth-note A that serves as the pick up to the
quintuplet feature. The descending quintuplet hits the seventh, thirteenth, fifth, eleventh,
and ninth scale degrees in that order. The last note of the rhythmic idea is tied to a half
note and ends with a staccato note on the tonic pitch. Notably, when the quintuplet
reappears in measure six with an F minor tonal center, Shorter uses the same scalar
pattern adapted to the new chord in that section. He also immediately follows the
quintuplet in F minor with another in C minor when the blues-progression dictates the
chord’s return to the tonic. The last note of the quintuplet followed by a staccato note is a
purposeful doubling of the piano motif. The soloist plays the top note in the right hand in
the triad followed by the reiteration of the tonic. He echoes this idea in measures three,
four, and eight, but this subtle whole step movement was not written in Shorter’s original
42
version. While the saxophonist included them at the Adam’s Apple recording session (as
The ninth and tenth measures, given their intricate harmonic structure, would
require a more dynamic melodic approach than the previous eight measures. Shorter
begins with the same rhythmic pattern of three quarter notes and an eighth note, followed
by another eighth note tied to a dotted half note (Example 2.8). The composer shifts the
repeated note up a half step to accommodate the F# half diminished, and the ascending
note ascends a minor third instead of a half-step as it leads into the B7#9#5. Shorter ends
the measure with an eighth-note on G which fits into the chord as the augmented fifth and
works to further alienate the listener from the original tonal center. The next measure of
the melody is not a mere modification to the main idea like previous sections. Shorter
writes a half-note Bb, the tritone of the written E7#9, and slides back down to the G, the #9
in this chord and the flatted seventh in the next, as it holds over the chord change. The
melody then moves in three eighth notes, C-G-F#, down to the dotted whole-note F that
concludes the melody over the C minor chord in measure eleven. This repeated
descending movement in measure ten appears to evoke the opposite design of the
measures six and seven. While these measures descend down the quintuplet pattern,
43
measure six starts higher than seven. The two faster patterns in measure ten work
contrary to the higher starting point in the second half of the measure. Slight
melody interesting and allow Shorter to weave his ideas through the distorted chord
changes.
By 1996, thirty years after its recorded premiere on Adam’s Apple, the piece had been
recorded on at least fifty-four different records by jazz luminaries such as Larry Coryell,
Ahmad Jamal, Lee Konitz, Dave Liebman, Cyrus Chestnut, Phil Woods, David Sanborn,
and Stan Getz (Aebersold Vol. 33). Why is it that such a simple yet idiosyncratic take on
the standard twelve-bar blues progression can capture the imaginations of so many of the
masters of the genre? This piece, among all others, portrays the essence of the composer.
He takes a building block of the genre, tweaks the form just enough to make it his own,
and creates a new idea. The two measures of ingenuity (nine and ten) understate the
basic idea of the piece: never get too comfortable in the music.
Alfred Lion and Frank Wolff, the founders of Blue Note Records, gave Shorter
the chance both to play the music and to play with the music. His recordings both as a
leader and with the Jazz Messengers provided ample opportunity for the composer to
experiment. This trend of letting Shorter be himself, which started with his mother and
continued through his band leaders in the 1960s, gave him musical confidence, and
allowed him become his own person in the jazz world. Shorter, from the beginning,
wanted individuality, and the fame garnered through his tour with Miles Davis’s second
44
great quintet gave him the notoriety (and the expectations of the future of jazz music)
Following 1961 when John Coltrane left Miles Davis’s group, Shorter started
receiving phone calls from the enigmatic trumpeter. “You happy where you at,” were
usually the first words over the speaker from the raspy voiced jazz icon (Mercer 94).
While working with the most prestigious jazz group in the country would be enticing to
saxophonist, the unwritten rule of loyalty between jazz musicians held Shorter back from
jumping ship: “Nobody likes a Benedict Arnold, Miles” (94). Unable to secure the tenor
player who had offered to join a few years prior, Davis had to look to other options.
Following Coltrane, Davis employed Sonny Rollins, Hank Mobley, George Coleman,
and Sam Rivers; however, it was Shorter who Davis really wanted to fill the role of his
sideman. Sonny Rollins was too big of a talent and capable of leading groups on his
own, Mobley’s drug problems made him unreliable and impossible to tour with due to his
parole limitations, Coleman clashed with the other band members, specifically drum
prodigy Tony Williams, as he played too cleanly and never made mistakes, and Rivers
(Williams’s suggested replacement) was more into the “New Thing” of avant-garde jazz
than the Davis repertory permitted. The result of Davis’s search for the perfect tenor
Though deterred from leaving by his loyalty to Art Blakey, Shorter started seeing
Davis at Messenger shows, usually right on the front row (Mercer 94). The phone calls
to Shorter’s New York apartment eventually were not enough and Davis became so
Unfortunately, it was Blakey, and not Shorter, who answered (95). Blakey, who had
46
worked with Davis for years (and according to his Davis’s autobiography, ratted him out
to the police about drugs for a leniency in his own sentencing), instantly recognized the
voice on the other end of the phone (Mercer 95, Davis 139). As the drummer was pacing
and muttering “Miles is trying to steal my tenor player,” to himself, Shorter, somewhat
embarrassed at the audacity of the trumpeter, declined the offer once again (Mercer 95).
While loyalty to the Messengers was indeed a strong reason for Shorter to remain
in the lineup, he understood the business aspects that would come from accepting the
offer to complete the Davis quintet. Blakey allowed the members of his group to
compose and have their pieces integrated into the group’s nightly sets, while Davis
continued to play the same music he had for over a decade. Shorter’s marketability and
future income relied as heavily on his compositions as it did on his performing. At that
time, the Messengers actually provided a better arrangement for Shorter to develop,
refine, and record his music than would the Davis group. In 1964, when Shorter left the
Messengers after his five-year tenure, he finally relented to the recruiting by Davis and
other members of the Davis quintet, pianist Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams. In
Davis’s typical “trial by fire” technique for new band members, Shorter was given the
name of the trumpeter’s tailor and a plane ticket to fly out to Los Angeles to meet the
band for his first performance (Mercer 97). This first performance happened to be at the
It did not take long for Shorter’s material to become mainstay in the Davis book.
Shorter’s first recording session with the Second Great Quintet (composed of himself,
Davis, Hancock, Williams, and bassist Ron Carter) in the latter part of January 1965
featured two of the saxophonist’s compositions, including its title track: “E.S.P.” The
47
album itself held artistic leanings even going so far as to include an “abstract and
impressionistic poem” by Ralph J. Gleason, a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle
(Gleason). The poem was created from the titles of Davis’s recordings and tracks and
came with the instruction that it was to be read aloud to the music (Ibid.). Six of the
seven tunes on this record appear in the poem: “E.S.P.” and “Iris” by Shorter, “Agitation”
by Davis, “R.J.” by Carter, and “Eighty-One” and “Mood” by Carter and Davis (only
Hancock’s “Little One” is omitted). Poignantly, all appear in the final column as if
Gleason is expressing that these songs are the cutting edge and the new direction for the
Miles Davis Quintet. Indeed, it immediately separated itself from the myriad of Davis
recordings with the noted absence of the trumpeter’s signature styles: pop songs and
“E.S.P.,” an abbreviation for extra sensory perception, typified the overall feel of
the Second Great Quartet. When the nebulous new compositions by Shorter and his band
mates combined with Davis’s policies of limited instruction and minimal recording takes,
the result was a spontaneous evolution in the music. The musical ideas communicated
between the rhythm section and the front line can give off the impression that they were
meticulously composed rather than improvised. Davis knew he had created not only a
Tony Williams were great musicians, and that they would work as
and the link for this band, Tony was the fire, the creative spark;
musical ideas we did; and Ron and Herbie were the anchors. I was
just the leader who put us all together. Those were all young guys
and although they were learning from me, I was learning from
them, too, about the new thing, the free thing. Because to be and
The tune “E.S.P.” serves as a perfect vehicle for “the idea man” to experiment with
Performed at a blistering tempo of mm. 265 (or faster as the group gained
familiarity with the song), this tune is comprised of a repeated sixteen measure form with
first and second endings. The most notable aspect of the work is immediately audible
after the first intervallic movement. The first six measures of the work contain only three
different notes (C, G, and D) and each is separated quartally (Example 3.1).
The note placement makes the fluctuating melody sound disjointed. Complicating this
effect are the asymmetrical rhythmic ideas. Shorter emphasizes syncopation on the off-
beat as the opening three measures feature consecutive movements of a dotted quarter
note, two groupings of an eighth note tied to a dotted quarter note, an eighth note tied to a
quarter note, an eighth note, another eighth note tied to a dotted quarter note, and finally
an eighth note tied to a half note. The dominant rhythm displayed (which appears three
49
times) is a half note duration placed on an upbeat. In the first three measures, and
similarly in measures five through seven, the melody is played eleven times on the off-
beat in contrast to the four times on. The temporal effect is unsettling and, as the
measures speed by, the listener can struggle to grasp at anything similar to a steady beat.
Shorter obliges with two downbeats in measure four: a quarter note and a dotted half
note. The dotted half-note punctuation to the statement on the second beat is then
revisited in the eighth measure and again in the final measure of the second ending.
As the melodic content is relatively minimal during the first half of “E.S.P.,” one
would expect the chords to reflect a similar concept. Shorter decides to amplify the
chromatically, the note that would fit neatly inside the previous chord will create musical
tension in the next measure. The C, G, and D each play a different role as the chords
begin with an E7#9, ascend to an FMaj7, return to the E7#9, and finally descend to an
EbMaj7#11. The three melodic notes represent the flatted third, seventh, and thirteenth in
the E7#9, and the fifth, ninth, and thirteenth in the FMaj7. Most notable is that while the
C, G, and D all fit neatly into the FMaj7, including the upper extensions, only the D can
be found in the E7#9. In the seventh and eighth measures, only the G returns from the
beginning and it works as the strongest chord tone of the first half of the song and as the
third in the EbMaj7#11. The opening figures of “E.S.P.” disorient the listener as the
composer combines quartal movement in the vein of Hindemith with ambiguous rhythms,
The step-wise motion in the chordal structure continues on until the twelfth
descending major second between the root chords. The melodic notes from measures
nine through twelve are more varied; thus the juxtaposition is not as pronounced as in the
first half. In this section, Shorter’s melody continues some quartal movement and the
syncopation, but the overall line is a variation on the original fluctuating motif. All three
notes appear in order, but Shorter has added what amounts to passing tones to create a
pentatonic scale for the first three measures. He begins the melody on a high D, moves
through the C of the motif, and down to an A. This is followed with the G and an F
which would serve as the root of the established pentatonic descent. Oddly, this note,
which is so important within the structure of the composition, is the ninth of the given
chord (E9#11) and is merely an eighth note on the up beat of four. Shorter completes his
With a G as the next note in the measure, one could assume that the melody is
returning back to C, yet that specific note is denied in both endings. Instead, Shorter has
quartal intervals compete against tertian for dominance in the remainder of the tune.
Ultimately, the tertian is strongest in the first ending while quartal movement is
reestablished in the second. The prevalence of the tertian chordal structure is exemplified
in measure fourteen where Shorter outlines the G7 chord. After the initial quarter note of
F (the flatted seventh chord tone), the melody ascends to a D (the fifth), then changes
direction through the third and root of the chord, B and G respectively. This is the first
time in the piece that has the chord that serves as the harmonic basis outlined directly in
the melody. With the two unabashed tertian movements in this measure and another
three in the first ending, the third is solidified as the dominant interval in this section. As
there are only six such movements in the prior twelve measures, the difference is
51
noticeable. The interval of a fourth appears nowhere in the four measures that comprise
The first ending also contains the first “conventional” harmonic progression as the
only is the movement from Dm7 to G7 the largest harmonic movement to that point, but
that fourteenth measure, as it completely abandons the traits that were established tonally,
harmonically, and rhythmically (three consecutive notes are on down beats). It is almost
as if the final two measures conclude as a result of the displacement from fourteen.
There is only a descending third from F to D in the fifteenth measure and a whole rest in
sixteen. A fifth diatonic scale step as the final note alludes to a half cadence-like idea of
ending on the dominant. The presence of the augmented eleventh scale degree in the
final chord (GbMaj7#11) serves another purpose insofar as it voices the C before the return
The second ending has similar elements to the first and is equally disorienting, but
the placement alters the direction of the piece as it moves toward either improvisations or
the conclusion. Harmonically, Shorter elects to move from the EbMaj7 in the second half
of measure twelve to a Db9#11 in measure seventeen, the first measure of the second
idea from measure twelve (FMaj7-EbMaj7 to Db9#11 in seventeen) and works against the
return to chromatic harmonic movement seen in the first ending (FMaj7-EbMaj7 to Dm7 in
thirteen). The Db9#11 serves as the basis for a tritone movement harmonically, as measure
eighteen moves to a Gm7, a related chord to the G7 found in the parallel measure
nineteen begins with another Db chord: Dbm7. Shorter then concludes the piece with a
recall of the chromatic harmony idea. Two beats after the second Db chord, the harmony
changes to a Gb7, a half-step away from the Gm7 in measure eighteen, and “E.S.P.”
concludes with an unaltered F triad. On further repetitions of the form, the F moves
swiftly into the opening chord as it continues the descending chromatic progression to the
E7#9.
develops the emotion further. Only the notes that comprise the triad are used in three
arpeggiated quarter-note triplets on beats three and four. This display of intervallic thirds
seemingly generates the illusion that the second ending is centered on tertian movement
similar to the first. The final two measures, however, demonstrate otherwise. The
melody ascends from the D at the end of measure eighteen, to an E, moves down a fourth
to a Bb, descends again to an A, and finally leaps up a fourth to return to the D. These
53
two prominent uses of the quartal melodic technique are a fitting conclusion to a piece
that relies upon this concept for the majority of its construction.
When Davis made the decision to pursue Shorter for his group, he knew what
kind of music the saxophonist would compose. Before Shorter joined with Davis’s
group, Freddie Hubbard would go to his fellow trumpeter’s house and hear a song on the
record player written by Shorter (Mercer 94). Hubbard said that, “Wayne had some
weird chord changes that he wrote. Miles liked those chords, like he liked Bill Evans’s
chords” (94). “E.S.P.” was just the beginning of the new direction in which Shorter and
his fellow band mates would lead the music of Miles Davis, much like Bill Evans and
George Russell had impacted his forays into modality. Shorter’s compositions embodied
the experimentation and freedom that had enveloped jazz since Ornette Coleman
emerged, yet still kept a foot in the old style and in modern Western art music. “E.S.P.”
The Second Great Quintet was only able to make one recording in the studio
before being forced into a hiatus because of its leader’s pair of hip surgeries in April and
August 1965 (Davis 282). During this break, which lasted into November of that year,
the other members of the quintet would record albums under their own names that would
allow even more freedom than the Davis quintet was used to (282). During this break
from touring together, the quintet unleashed a myriad of influential recordings. Herbie
Hancock released his critically acclaimed Maiden Voyage, and Tony Williams recorded
the equally lauded Spring (Mercer 105). Even Shorter’s ex-band mate, Lee Morgan,
created the hit record Gigolo with the tenor saxophonist joining him for the session (105).
54
Shorter, for his part, recorded three albums for Blue Note Records during this time away:
The Soothsayer, Etcetera, and The All Seeing Eye. With each new album, Shorter
progressed musically and philosophically and seemed to buck the conventions of jazz
The liner notes for The All Seeing Eye, which were written by legendary jazz
writer Nat Hentoff after Shorter described the works, included the fact that the tenorman
was pursuing, “a wider range of colors and textures” (Hentoff). The music contains a
The All Seeing Eye depicts God looking over the universe before
His act of Creation. The eye, missing nothing, sweeps all over the
feel how such an eye would move, how such a mind could be so
emerged.’ (Shorter/Hentoff)
Clearly, Shorter’s compositional drive is very different from the Tin Pan Alley-style
songs that permeated jazz music. His spiritual intentions echo the works of Shorter’s
former practice mate John Coltrane during this period, as Coltrane had released his suite,
A Love Supreme, a dedication and even aural depiction of a poem to God, earlier that
year. Shorter’s “music of the spheres” approach to creating music for the unexplainable
embodies some of the ideas of the Second Great Quintet upon Davis’s return to the stage.
After a few concerts with Davis back in the lineup, the rest of the band knew that
they had moved too far into modern jazz to retreat back to the trumpeter’s book of
standards (Mercer 108). Davis recognized this, even stating in his autobiography that
55
“the band wanted to play the tunes we were recording which we never did live, and I
know that was a sore point with them” (Davis 278). To prevent the group from returning
to the stasis of “Kind of Blue,” “My Funny Valentine,” and “’Round Midnight,” the rest
of the band decided that they would take action, without the knowledge or consent of its
leader (Mercer 109). Tony Williams approached Shorter, Carter, and Hancock with the
prospect of “anti-music” (Mercer Ibid.). The idea was to sacrifice their final gig of 1965
for the “betterment of the band” and play the opposite of whatever the other musicians
expected each other to play. The resulting live recording at a jazz club in Chicago, Live
at the Plugged Nickel, produced in a newfound freedom for the Davis quintet. After the
first set, which initially befuddled Davis, the trumpeter began to catch onto the “game”
and eventually molded his signature style even to these extreme circumstances.
Following the concerts at the Plugged Nickel, Davis and his group resumed their former
This newfound allowance for further explorations within the confines of one of
the most popular mainstream jazz groups in the country affected Shorter’s compositions.
Though all his compositions essentially had a green light from Davis already, Shorter
now felt he had carte blanche for expanding his music in all directions (Davis 273). The
quintet’s next studio recording in late October 1966, Miles Smiles, includes three songs
by Shorter out of the six on the album: “Orbits,” “Dolores,” and an updated version of
“Footprints.” “Orbits” was chosen as the opening track for side one of the album, as it
was a quick tempo swing to start off the album with energy. The song itself, however,
phrase groups of “Infant Eyes,” the composer has been interested in the exploration of
At first, Wayne had been a free-form player, but playing with Art
wanted to play freer . . . but he didn’t want to be all the way out,
component one chooses: aural clues or motivically. The score of the music appears to be
separated into three distinct sections. The first nine measures are created from a motive
in measures one through three, then two ensuing two variations. This is followed by a
new idea that takes precedence for the next eight measures. Shorter concludes with a
four-measure motive that is somewhat divergent from its first repetition and the second
version is duplicated directly to end the work. The construction (nine-measure A section,
section.
The principal textural indication of the structure when merely listening to the
work would be the drums. Williams splits up the tune into three separate sections as
well, but his approach is anticipatory in comparison to the established dividers in the
written music. Three drum techniques form the boundaries in his interpretation:
arrhythmic cymbals, a snare drum roll, and the standard uptempo swing feel that has been
57
the backbone of jazz drumming since the early years of the art. The first two styles create
the absence of a solid beat. Williams relies on the cymbal concept, which is
complimented with an equally sparse bass line from Carter, for the first eight measures.
The drums then segue into the roll that lasts until the end of measure fifteen. The
sixteenth measure abruptly shifts into the typical swing feel. Williams’s divisions are
indeed similar to the thematic groupings created by Shorter, yet they precede the change
guideline to keep the band from deviating from the form as its construction is angular and
chaos, the opposite, his drum cues purposefully muddling the construct, is equally
possible. The absence of a steady beat in the rhythm section during the first two motives,
“Orbits” would be to approach the rhythm section’s interpretation when the melody
returns at the end of the recording. The final improvised solo belongs to Hancock who
clearly demarcates the return to the melody with a concluding figure that emulates the C
section. The melody then picks up at measure nine, omitting the free form section and
adhering closely to Williams’s groupings. The drums here combine the rolls and the
58
cymbals but still neglect the solid beat of the swing section, which begins in the same
approximate area.6 The liner notes for Miles Smiles, written by Anthony Tuttle, end the
description of “Orbits” by saying that the song is “space-bound” but that it “gradually
return[s] the song to earth” (Tuttle). This description explains the direction of the music
both in the melody and the rhythm section as “Orbits” moves from free to straight-ahead
Since Hancock plays only during his solo, the rhythm section’s sole chordal
representation is Carter’s bass. This instrument generally outlines the chords or acts as a
time keeper, particularly when working with Williams’s manic drumming. In essence, by
removing the chordal structure from the group and creating a piano-less quartet, the
improvised solos from Davis, Shorter, and eventually Hancock are not limited to the
written chord changes. The idea of the piano-less jazz group was popularized by Sonny
Rollins in the late 1950s and was used extensively by Ornette Coleman, though he would
often use two basses. The result, of course, was a freedom from conventional harmony,
an idea that played perfectly into the Second Great Quintet’s experiments into the “New
Thing.” Shorter’s chords for “Orbits” still retain many of the techniques his
compositions have emphasized, but in this interpretation, they play a secondary role to
The majority of Shorter’s usual chordal gymnastics are located in the first two
motivic ideas. Behind a forward-leaning four-note figure that accents the second note
and “ghosts” the first, the composer prominently displays the tritone sonority from
6
Davis’s policy of minimal takes in the studio at this point in his career affected the ending of the piece as
Davis, Shorter, and Williams all noticeably stumble through the return of the melody. If not for his desire
to make the recordings sound live, another leader would more than likely have re-recorded the song to
correct the mistakes. Williams’s forgiveness of mistakes probably influenced this as well.
59
progression C7-A7b9 in the first measure to an Ebmin7 in the next.7 The sequence repeats
again in measures four and five; however, the third variation deceives the listener. In
measure seven, Shorter repeats the C7-A7b9 one final time, only to move the chord to D7#9,
a half step down from the expected chord. This change is hardly distinguishable, as the
expected chord and the new chord are extremely similar. The augmented and
subsequently diminished ninth scale degrees, when coupled with the third scale degree of
the D7#9 chord are an Eb-F-F# (Gb), an echo of the first three notes of the Ebmin7 chord.
Shorter’s reasoning here is not merely to add variety to the pattern, but also to anticipate
In this section, where the drum rolls continue to conceal the beat, the composer
has decided to borrow an idea from a piece discussed earlier, “E.S.P.,” and make the
chordal texture equally ambiguous. The D7#9 in measure eight leads to a Gmin7 in
measure nine and creates a supertonic to dominant progression before another tritone
7
According to the Grove Dictionary a ghosted note is defined as: “A weak note, sometimes barely audible,
or a note that is implied rather than sounded. Ghost notes may be produced intentionally as a subtle means
of articulating a phrase, or they may occur accidentally when a player “fluffs” notes (that is, fails to
produce them cleanly with a full tone). The term is also used of phantom notes, implied by the internal
rhythmic and melodic logic of a line or by voice leading but not actually sounded” (“Ghost(ed) Note”).
60
movement to a DbMaj7 in measure ten. From measure ten until measure fifteen, the
“E.S.P.,” the chords in this section move in minimal steps to accommodate the melody as
again uses the tritone movement to a Gb chord in the sixteenth measure. The part that is
surprising in the identical treatment of the intervallic motion from this Gb until measure
nineteen, and measures ten to thirteen. The movements in the earlier measures outline an
ascending major second, a switch from major to minor within the same chord, and a
minor second descent. This is the same motion found from the Gb-AbMaj7-Abmin7-
Gmin7 in the next idea. The movement is due in part to the sequential nature of the work,
as it modulates up a fourth from the original statement, but as the idea straddles both the
motivic sections and itself, Shorter’s chordal construction once again mutates the form of
the music.
“Orbits” is one of the many studies in form Shorter composed during this
incarnation of Miles Davis’s group, but it also one of the most complex sounding. Each
of the significant parts of the music (the melody, the harmony, and the rhythm section’s
interpretation) has its own formal construction. The resulting music is nebulous and
could make a listener uncomfortable. At this point in his career, Shorter delved into the
artistic side of jazz music, more in line with his solo records instead of the R&B
In Davis, Shorter found a kindred spirit for dynamic music. Davis allowed his
“idea man” to compose nearly unchecked and this autonomy produced a number of
even say anything. He said […in the famous Miles whisper], ‘What you
got?’ He didn’t say do this and do that….When he saw it, he would look
at it, play it a little on the piano, and say, ‘You ready to record now?’ Like
that….The influence Miles had was to leave the damn door open. In fact,
Davis’s permissive compositional guidelines are evident in the melodic, harmonic and
formal ideas of tunes such as “E.S.P.” and “Orbits” along with a slight reworking of
Shorter’s signature song “Footprints” and the even more outlandish “Nefertiti,” where
there is no improvisation in the trumpet or saxophone and the music stems from the
rhythm section’s frenetic accompaniment under the static melody. Even with the rapid
metamorphosis of jazz under Davis and his group, the trumpeter felt the need to change
his style and his music once again. Shorter and the rest of his band mates willingly
Miles Davis and his groups pioneered numerous trends in jazz music. The
trumpeter helped popularize the idea of playing songs from musicals and other popular
tunes in a jazz style. He played in the bands of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and
Thelonious Monk, the fathers of Bebop. The “Cool School” style of jazz, popular with
white musicians specifically in California, drew direct influence from Davis’s aptly
named “Birth of the Cool” album recorded in 1949-1950. His “Kind of Blue” album
ushered in a new simplicity in the music as Davis worked to develop modal jazz with the
assistance of pianist/theoretician George Russell and pianist Bill Evans who plays on the
numerous albums, such as “Sketches In Spain” and “Porgy and Bess,” bordered on Third
Stream jazz which attempted to create a hybrid of jazz and modern classical music. None
of these ventures, including those made later by Shorter and his fellow quintet members
electronic instruments.
By 1968, rock music had a firm grasp on album sales among young audiences,
and jazz was quickly falling into the art music category that plagued the classical styles.
Davis’s choice to “plug-in” was two-fold: he wanted to keep making records that would
sell, and he wanted to emulate the music of other black rock musicians, notably James
Brown, Jimi Hendrix, and Sly Stone. The trumpeter’s fascination with these musicians is
well documented, and through his third wife, model/songwriter Betty Mabry, he was able
to meet them. Davis was looking to incorporate the ideas he derived from rock and funk
music into his own style and at first, did so without the band’s knowledge.
63
For the Second Great Quintet’s fifth album, Miles in the Sky, Davis added two
new elements to his acoustic group, a electric guitar played by George Benson for a
Shorter composition entitled “Paraphernalia,” and an electric piano and bass for “Stuff.”
However, on May 17, 1968, when the band entered the studios at Columbia records,
Hancock did not know that he would be playing on a Fender Rhodes electric piano
(Freeman 19). This recording was the first released music under the direction of Davis to
include electronic instruments.8 This marked the beginning of the dynamic change in the
music of every member of the quintet.9 Shorter felt the oncoming paradigm shift and
There was that tendency to think that the whole evening was the
. . In any one chord exists all other chords. Why go through all the other
chords and keep repeating a song form over and over again . . . So we
The Davis Quintet would continue to tentatively explore the electric realm with their next
album, Filles de Kilimanjaro, but it was with the next two studio albums, and incidentally
Shorter’s final two with the group, that altered the landscape of jazz permanently.
8
While “Stuff” is the first music released to public, Davis had actually recorded a tune in December of
1967 entitled “Circle in the Round” with Joe Beck playing a droning guitar figure in and Hancock had
knowingly recorded “Fun” on electric piano in January of 1968 (Freeman 20). These tracks were later
released on Circle in the Round and Directions in 1976 and 1981 respectively (20).
9
Carter was the most resistant to the style change and was the first to leave the group.
64
On February 18, 1969, Davis brought the band in to record In a Silent Way. By
this time, the group had experienced a radical change in personnel. Ron Carter had left
the group and been replaced by Englishman Dave Holland. Hancock was joined both by
electric pianist Chick Corea and electric pianist and organist Joe Zawinul. The most
electric guitar. McLaughlin’s guitar served a different purpose than Benson’s where the
instrument’s role was droning and textural. This guitar was at the forefront of the music
The other substantial alteration in the group’s sound was not even listed on the
original liner notes (Glenn). Shorter was featured for the first time on record playing the
soprano saxophone.10 The switch, while echoing John Coltrane’s forays with the
instrument that also began while in Davis’s employ, served a different purpose in these
required an instrument that could slice through the density. It is for this reason that Davis
himself played higher and with sharper phrases in the period from 1969 until his pseudo-
retirement in 1975.
Shorter’s work on In a Silent Way was purely that of a band member, as the music
is mostly derived from a profoundly edited composition by Joe Zawinul. The original
version was somewhat traditional and written with a complicated chordal structure,
floating melody, and an ever-changing bass line. Davis retained only the melody and
developed a modal jam underneath (Freeman 24). Shorter states the main theme of the
second track of the album, “In a Silent Way/It’s About That Time,” following
10
Shorter’s recording of the song “Ascent” in 1968 was actually his first use of the instrument, but at the
time of the release of In a Silent Way, “Ascent” had not been made public (Ephland).
65
McLaughlin’s initial interpretation, and the meditative temperament of the piece allows
both the saxophonist and Davis to solo “endlessly over oceans of electric piano, bass, and
Soothing and minimalist in comparison the previous works of the Second Great
Quintet, Davis’s new group and style received lofty praise, but not from jazz critics or
musicians. In a Silent Way garnered its honors from rock critics (Freeman 26). Each side
saw this music as rock-oriented and thus reacted accordingly. Rock critics were ecstatic
that a jazz legend would acknowledge their music while jazz critics attached the most
derogatory statement one can call a musician: sell out. Jazz critics and musicians alike
felt that Davis and his group, at one time the vanguard of modern jazz music, was
abandoning them in pursuit of financial gain. Even old friends, such as bass player
Charles Mingus, would condemn the trumpet player’s endeavors. When asked about
Mingus: Who?
Mingus: Never heard of him. I knew a guy by that name who used to play with
Mingus: I don’t think he’s around anymore, unless you mean this guy who had a
trumpet that I saw with pictures of naked white girls. I gave a trumpet to
my four-year-old nephew, and he made better sounds than this guy (Szwed
313).
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Even with the glut of ill will from his jazz colleagues, Davis continued to pursue
the next level of his sonic ideas, with an album that made In a Silent Way appear tame by
comparison. Given the subtitle “Directions in Music by Miles Davis,” Bitches Brew
takes the electric and studio manipulation of jazz, funk, and rock, to new extremes.
Calling any of the tracks on the record a “song” is a loose interpretation of the word.
Mainly, Davis and his group expanded on the modal vamp experimentation that was
prevalent on In a Silent Way, and made small motives and a bass line groove the
army of musicians (at least fifteen band members contributed to the recording) roamed
the rhythm or a sound effect emanating from the electric pianos or McLaughlin’s guitar.
The majority of the music sounds as if a soloist is trying to find his way across the rest of
the band’s amoeba-like pulsation. This was a sound that did not seem organically
created. That was because it could not have been recorded live; the sound was created
The recording session for Bitches Brew took place in Columbia Studio B in New
York City from August 19 to August 21, 1969, and was mainly a collection of jam
sessions run by Davis with Macero in the booth.11 When the music was recorded, it was
then Macero’s job to combine the takes into the music, then obtain approval of the final
version from Davis before the release. This was the standard procedure for Davis’s
recordings since In a Silent Way, but as the producer’s editing skill and technology
improved, he was able to “[transform] amorphous jam sessions into epic poems, filled
11
A slightly different band returned to the studio on January 28, 1970, to record “Feio,” a song written by
Shorter that was not issued on the original double LP. “Feio,” which sounds like jazz improvisation over a
subdued electronic music soundtrack, is now a “bonus track” on the compact disc incarnation of the album.
67
with bluster and bravado but also tender, plangent beauty” (Freeman 6).12 The result of
this artificiality of the product is that the music of the band is difficult to publish. While
the songs in the Davis book and those of the Second Great Quintet could be transferred
easily into notation and performed by anyone who wanted to purchase them, the
electronic music produced by Davis and his band did not conform quite as easily. The
results of this complication are that the majority of Shorter’s music from Bitches Brew
through his work with Weather Report and his own electric and current ensembles are
One of only two songs on the album not credited to Davis (The first selection, “Pharaoh’s
Dance,” was written by Joe Zawinul), “Sanctuary” balances between the unstructured
music on the rest of the album and the rhythmically driven melody concept that
permeated Nefertiti. While the piece itself was named after a novella by Edith Wharton,
the concept of “Sanctuary” stemmed from Davis and Hancock’s duets on “I Fall in Love
Too Easily” (Mercer 133/Freeman 121). Shorter took the interplay between the two
instruments and electrified it, literally, to replicate the heroic melodies for the new band’s
texture.
As was typical in dealing with Davis, acquiring the rights to the songs sometimes
proved difficult as any revision was often considered enough (by Davis anyway) to count
as at least co-composing credits if not full credit. As writing the music would earn more
royalties, band members occasionally had fights with Davis to have the track listing
12
For In a Silent Way, Davis completed recording on the first track “Shhh/Peaceful” too short to complete
the first side of the LP (Szwed 281). Macero was forced to use the first half of the music and repeat it
verbatim at the end (281). Critic Martin Williams of The New York Times not only noticed the somewhat
shoddy editing, he took exception to it saying, “I decline to comment on Columbia’s release, In a Silent
Way, except for the warning that, through no fault of the musicians involved, the editing, annotating, and
packaging are horrendous. Through faulty tape splicing, a portion of the music inadvertently gets repeated
at one point!” (Freeman 91).
68
correctly identify the composer. Following the disputes of Bill Evans for his work on
Kind of Blue and Joe Zawinul for “In a Silent Way,” Shorter was forced to write a letter
(Mercer 134).
This is to inform you that the enclosed license bearing my name as 50%
in the business, therefore, I shall not attempt any further explanation for
the readjustment.
Cordially yours,
Wayne Shorter
Miyako Music
that aspired toward businesslike formality”) implies that Elizabeth Martone, a member of
Columbia’s copyright department, knew of the rampant attempts of band leaders taking
credit for their musician’s works and would make the correction swiftly without pursuing
this issue further (Mercer 134). It seems fitting that Shorter’s childlike curiosity in music
“Sanctuary” was first released on this album, but it was actually recorded on
February 15, 1968, with the acoustic quintet with the tracks from the Miles in the Sky
69
album. This version was not released until Circle in the Round (1979), Columbia’s
attempt to perpetuate the presence of Davis’s music even though, by that time, the
trumpeter had not played for four years (Freeman 119). The collection issued previously
unreleased music dating from 1955’s “Two Bass Hit,” through “Guinnevere,” Davis’s
interpretation of a song written by David Crosby of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and
the Byrds, which was recorded with during the later Bitches Brew sessions.
traditional sound and style. Described as “lonely” in the original liner notes, the melody
is stated in concise ideas from Shorter and Davis in unison at the octave (Issacs). The
primary motion stems from either a two-note elongated rhythm or a three-note grouping
that emphasizes the second of the three notes. The subtle surge in the three-note pattern
drives the swaying motion of the triple-meter waltz that is implied but never outwardly
through the tune, yet the slow, meditative mood fits Shorter’s spacious melody perfectly.
Each member of the enlarged rhythm section only adds to the ensemble sound when they
deem it absolutely necessary. The piano, bass, and guitar essentially fill in the silences
between the succinct melodic motives in the trumpet and saxophone. The added ideas
serve as expressions and tonal depictions of the scene. The peace of the music is
waterfall of sound during the repeat of the melody at the end, but these intrusions are
rarely unwelcome. Williams, who normally drums with a gradually increasing ferocity in
similar tunes, prefers a minimalist approach to “Sanctuary,” often sitting in silence for
long stretches of time. Overall, the aura of Shorter’s original “Sanctuary” is melancholy
70
and never reaches the apex of emotion a listener would expect. Instead, the band reveres
For Bitches Brew, “Sanctuary” was recorded on the first day of the sessions.
Aside from Shorter and Davis, the group contained Bennie Maupin on bass clarinet, Joe
Zawinul and Chick Corea on electric piano, John McLaughlin on guitar, Dave Holland on
bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums, Don Alias on congas, and Jumma Santos (also known as
Jim Riley) on shaker.13 Shorter’s penchant for spiraling melodies is at once even more
noticeable than in the first recording of “Santuary”. Considerably lengthened from the
original version to eleven minute duration, Shorter leaves no space for improvisation
from the melodic instruments. The melodic content is, in actuality, through-composed, a
technique Shorter would adapt for his later compositions (Mercer 135). The
saxophonist’s decision to orchestrate this particular part of the music and in subsequent
works allows him total control over that which he determines is the essence of the
composition. This latest version of the tune is far more dynamic than the original, as the
emotions of the music are exaggerated. Shorter, however, did not elicit any specific
directions for the rhythm section; the dramatic direction changes of the work generally
elements do not extend from the spiraling and subdued trumpet and soprano saxophone
unison (who never stray from one another except when Shorter drops out intentionally),
but rather from the rhythm section. Shorter plays slightly behind Davis and creates a
13
One of Macero’s editing tricks was to change the speaker from which certain instruments sounded. On
“Sanctuary,” the electric pianos utilized this technique as Zawinul was voiced in the left channel and Corea
in the right (Bitches Brew). The drums with DeJohnette and Lenny White, Don Alias, or Billy Cobham
would receive this treatment on other tracks, and the third day of recording had three electric pianos with
Larry Young assuming the “center” position (Bitches Brew).
71
textural echo, but precision never seems to be the highest priority for the piece. Similar
beginning with the interjections from Corea’s piano transforms into full blown funk-
chaos when Davis and Shorter make their dramatic minor third interval ascent [4:20].
This climax, and its reiteration near the end of the song, functions as the distinguishing
characteristic of the tune. It is here that the framework of the Davis and Hancock (later
Corea) duet of “I Fall in Love Too Easily” provided the basis for this structural change
(Belden). “Sanctuary” was actually the piece often played after the duet and created a
minor intensity change of its own (Ibid.). After the first recorded version of “I Fall in
Love Too Easily” on Seven Steps to Heaven in 1963, Davis’s rendition of the song
increasingly left out notes in the melody in order to allow the pianist in the duet to
reharmonize the tune at will. Davis applied this freedom to exaggerate Shorter’s updated,
emotion for the song as the spacious opening could reach new heights with the increased
ensemble size and volume of the electric instruments. The sonic power of his electric
group produced the energy required to create the force envisioned by Davis, Macero, and
Shorter.
This vigorous reworking of “Sanctuary” for the final track on Bitches Brew still
retains much of the mysterious charm of the former. While the trumpet and saxophone
change of compositional procedure of both Shorter and Davis. The Circle and the Round
and Bitches Brew versions embody the searching nature of the music, but introduce new
aspects that would affect all of Shorter’s future compositions: theatrical scoring, post-
72
improvisatory freedom; however, as a composer, this allowed him to control the emotions
of the piece closer to Western classical music sensibilities. As Shorter’s works continue
to evolved further into music that evoked moods and environments, keeping control over
Particularly throughout the three decades following Bitches Brew, Shorter used a
climatic third ascension is a prime example of the technique Shorter learned from Teo
Macero. The music was recorded in two separate groups in order to achieve the apex of
the music; first with Davis’s working quintet and Don Alias (an allusion to the original
recording), and the second with the other band members added (Belden). These two
Perhaps the most significant lesson of “Sanctuary” is the idea that music is never
finished; that the music continues to change with the composer. Within two years,
Shorter had produced two very different sounding songs with the same name and melody.
Carlos Santana, and a fourth time in 2002 with Shorter’s current acoustic quartet. Each
version of the music retains the essence of the song but often little else. On an interview
for the DVD of the 1988 concert with Santana at the Montreux Jazz Festival, Shorter
I went to Japan with the group, my small group you know, and we would
do “Sanctuary” and they were just kind of floating around, I said to the
73
drums “Hey, put a back beat in, like a chop-chop on wood, man” and you
‘cause we did it the floating way first . . . and it was happening. See, I’m
still working with “Sanctuary,” it ain’t done yet. There’s part two. It’s
With “Sanctuary,” Shorter began a continual process of reinventing his music and
himself. Over the last two decades, Shorter’s earlier compositions reappeared in his
nightly sets, but in a profoundly different style. As every prior composition was available
to voice his latest ideas, Shorter would take his already complex and innovative music
and delve even deeper into the composition; analyzing and molding each element into a
Since jazz music’s split into the two camps of Big Band Swing and Bebop in the
middle of the 1940s, its musicians have struggled to walk the fine line between
commercial success and their artistic integrity. Bitches Brew was, without a doubt, a
huge success commercially, having sold 70,000 copies in its first month of availability, a
major accomplishment in the jazz world (Freeman 29). Music this conceptual needed the
help of a multitude of factors for its prosperity: the provocative title, its equally
stimulating cover art (an apparent monument to the beauty of blackness painted by Mati
Klarwein), and its aggressive marketing toward the acid-rock, hippie culture (Freeman
29, Bitches Brew).14 As for maintaining his artistic integrity, Davis, Shorter, and the rest
of the band definitely felt they were moving in the right direction, much to the
displeasure of a disproportionately large segment of jazz musicians. Over the next five
14
The decision to promote the album toward hippies is ironic in that was recorded shortly after the
Woodstock festival which featured two of Davis’s latest inspirations: Jimi Hendrix and Sly and the Family
Stone.
74
years, before his sabbatical, Davis would go on to make five more studio records and
twelve live recordings (not including the collections assembled from recording sessions
during that period released from 1975-1981). Members on Davis’s first two electronic
albums would split into several of the most commercially successful jazz-rock fusion
bands. Herbie Hancock would first create Mwandishi and later Headhunters. Tony
Williams, John McLaughlin, and Larry Young formed the first version of Tony Williams
Lifetime. McLaughlin would also start the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Chick Corea
As for Shorter, he had completed his five-year tenure with Davis and decided it
was time for him to move forward. Complicating his relationship with Davis is that
while he was on the road, his newborn daughter, Iska (with second wife, Ana Maria
Patricio) reacted badly to her vaccinations and developed brain damage (Mercer 135).
Shorter needed to have more autonomy with the touring schedule in order to assist his
wife as much as possible with Iska’s seizures (136). It was time for Shorter to have his
own jazz group, and he joined with current bandmate Joe Zawinul and bassist Miroslav
When Shorter decided he needed more control over the direction of his career and
start his own group, partnering up with his old friend and current collaborator, Joe
Zawinul, made perfect sense. Since introducing Shorter into his brief post as tenor
saxophonist for Maynard Ferguson’s big band, the Austrian-born Zawinul had made a
name for himself with Julian “Cannonball” Adderley’s group, but was ready to leave his
own high profile position (Mercer 140). The two found a mutual companion to add as
the group’s third co-leader, Miroslav Vitous, who had worked with the other two men on
separate occasions: Shorter’s Super Nova (1969), and Zawinul’s self titled 1970 release,
Zawinul (140).
The group decided their somewhat bizarre name in a brainstorming session where
Shorter suggested the title should stem from something that people are confronted with
on a daily basis such as “The Six O’Clock News” or the eventual “Weather Report”
(Mercer 141). Their musical identity was an obvious progression for the three when
examining the music Shorter and Zawinul had contributed to the recording sessions for
the two electric albums they had recorded with Davis. Zawinul recognized the
similarities in the compositions of Shorter and his own endeavors. He noticed that, “[he
and Shorter] both started changing the form of music around, away from the song form . .
. we were very much alike and simply opened up a melody and let it expand where it
went” (141). Shorter concurred with this assertion adding a dramatic image to their
intentions:
We were talking about doing music that had mountains and streams and
valleys and going over hill and dale. We were trying to do music with
76
another grammar, where you don’t resolve something, like writing a letter
where you don’t use capitals. We wanted to have a fanfare and a chase
and an announcement. It was close to film music. Music for films that
The trio’s high minded ideals, much like many of the fusion groups, also included
approaching a much larger audience than the jazz club circuit (142).
The group would achieve modest success over their fourteen years of existence
and would feature a perpetually changing personnel that varied with each recording.
After Vitous left the group, presumably because of a feeling of inferior recognition in
comparison to Shorter and Zawinul, a stylistic shift in the music, and the constant clashes
between himself and Zawinul (a common theme due to Zawinul’s fiery temper), Weather
Report would employ three different bass players: Alphonso Johnson, Jaco Pastorius, and
Victor Bailey (Mercer 161). The number of different musicians behind the drum set and
the auxiliary percussion is more staggering: twelve drummers (including Peter Erskine,
Omar Hakim, Leon “Ndugu” Chancler, and a guest appearance from Tony Willams) and
nine percussionists (including Airto Moreira, Dom Um Romão, Don Alias, and Minu
Cinelu). The interchange through the group could either be seen to demonstrate the level
of commitment Shorter and Zawinul had to constantly adapt their style or as the
embodiment of each band member’s uncertainty in finding that sound. Regardless, from
Weather Report’s inception in 1970, through fifteen commercial recordings, and until
their final record 1985 (fittingly entitled This is This! as it was essentially recorded after
the members of the group had moved onto other projects), Zawinul’s and Shorter’s
presence are constants (Mercer 208). During the latter years of Weather Report’s
77
existence, his presence may have been the majority of Shorter’s contribution as his
compositional output declined steadily, but during first half of the 1970s, he and Zawinul
developed a music with, according to one Downbeat writer, “roots in jazz but ideas in the
insults in that it was too accessible to the general public. The music, after their initial
release entitled Weather Report, which served as an emulation of the electronic, groove-
based experiments the leaders had embraced in Davis’s group, drifted into the realm of a
jazz-rock-pop fusion: “Most of their music just tried too hard and wanted too badly to be
liked” (Freeman 54). Eventually, Shorter grew disillusioned with the commercial
direction Weather Report developed and often retreated into the background of the group.
This allowed the alpha-male personality of his co-leader to take full command both on
and off the stage. Shorter, who increasingly relied upon the soprano saxophone to
represent his voice, also found solace in his religious pursuit, as his wife, Ana Maria, and
his best friend, Herbie Hancock, helped to convert him to Nichiren Buddhism (Mercer
153-155). An image of Zawinul arguing with club owners for the band’s pay while
Shorter sat and chanted “Nam Myoho Renge Kyo” is an accurate depiction of the
Shorter’s strongest compositions emerged in the early years of the group where
their artistic explorations were applied to a higher importance than their purported
pandering to rock audiences. Shorter’s solo projects during and immediately following
15
Nichiren Daishonin was a thirteenth century Japanese monk who focused upon the final teaching of
Buddha: the Lotus Sutra, which explains that all living beings can reach enlightenment (Mercer 151). The
sect also stresses interconnection in all things including personal responsibility (Mercer Ibid.). “Nam
Myoho Renge Kyo” is the title of the Lotus Sutra and is chanted in order to obtain its wisdom. Nichiren
Buddhists are controversial in that they actively promote the teachings of the monk.
78
his time with Weather Report can be considered a reaction to his discomfort with the
material, but his compositions, particularly on Mysterious Traveller [sic] (1974), and the
artistic and profitable success Heavy Weather (1977), illustrate that Shorter’s
Mysterious Traveller was a stylistic modification for Weather Report, and the
change to a more audience-friendly popish brand of jazz-rock opened new doors in their
direction but left bassist Vitous out of the equation. He still contributed to the recording
of the album, but Shorter and Zawinul had already found Alphonso Johnson, a new bass
player to add a funk stylized groove that had been mostly absent in the group’s music up
to that point. Johnson played a crucial role on the title track: Shorter’s “Mysterious
Traveller.” His purpose was essentially to establish the first beat of each measure. As
the piece was meticulously arranged with Shorter’s new level of complexity, finding that
first beat could be a bigger challenge than expected. The music is constantly shifting
time signatures between triple, quadruple, and quintuple meter. The nebulous feel is
consistent as there are nineteen changes in the first twenty measures (Example 5.1). This
music is clearly not intended for a group of amateur musicians. Shorter designed
It could be argued that Shorter’s compositional work with his new band is no
longer jazz music. Jazz music’s distinguishing elements are, among other factors, the
swinging eighth-note pattern and improvisation. “Mysterious Traveller” does not swing,
and its only improvisation is structured into the conclusion. Chord changes are not even
written in until measure sixty-eight of its eighty measure duration. Shorter replaced these
most common elements of jazz style with a funk groove and a layering of orchestrated
79
musical ideas upon each other. In this respect, the saxophonist has drawn upon his
classical training at NYU and paired it with popular music to create his own sound, which
is inspired as much by these exterior elements and his own musical experiences as it is by
jazz.
80
unstructured synthesized sound effect that is described as “eerie” in the score and serves
to set up an ambience. He then opens the piece with a two-measure vamp featuring only
Zawinul’s piano playing both his part (syncopated chords which grow increasingly
complex as the work continues) and the eventual bass line. After the vamp is repeated
three times, Shorter writes in a drum part that blends with the asymmetrical groove and
accents the rhythm by hitting the snare drum on the second and fourth beats in the 4/4
measures and the second beat in three-beat measures. This polyrhythm develops for
another six measures before the introduction of a second motif consisting of two
measures over a 4/4 and a 5/4 measure that features a continuous syncopated line in the
piano and the newly entered bass. This figure appears three more times, each time after
twelve measures of the established rhythmic idea. Shorter’s other musical concepts enter
at irregular intervals throughout the piece, but for the first fifty-six measures, he has
The second section introduces two new components to the work: the bass figure
(which is a subtle adaptation of the piano’s figure in the left hand) and an increasing
freedom in Zawinul’s chordal syncopation. As with the melody in “Sanctuary” and many
of Shorter’s later pieces, each musical idea is written out, creating an orchestration that
would allow the pianist to replicate the sonorities the composer intended rather than rely
on chord symbols. It is not until the third section that Shorter’s soprano saxophone enters
with four measures of minimal material as he adds short and tonally ambiguous eighth
notes and sixteenth notes to the polyrhythmic interaction. In the recording of the piece,
Shorter begins each iteration of the note (always an A above the treble staff) below pitch
and slides into the correct tuning quickly, almost as a subdivision of the quick beats. This
E-C#-B-E (this second E is an octave below the first) looped together through rapid
collections of sixteenth-note quintuplets that constantly alter the location of the naturally
accented upper octave E (Example 5.2). This idea lasts for five measures, but in keeping
with the four-measure divisions of this phrase, Shorter reenters with a line underneath the
organ during the final measure of the quintuplet figure. He concludes the idea in the
acrobatics and basic studio editing skills as he overdubs himself to create perfect fifth and
major third intervals in the soprano. This is followed shortly by a streaming thirty-
second note pattern that emphasizes interplay between A-natural and A-flat. Shorter’s
chromatic and tonal distortion tendencies are most present in his own part.
establishes a new level of excitement above the intermittent technical segments in the
83
primary instruments of the group. As Shorter records melodic ideas on both his tenor and
soprano and splices them together, they lead to a brisk alternating sextuplet pattern in the
Rhodes piano, Zawinul’s third different keyboard timbre of the music. Measure fifty-five
in the score begins this rhythmic pattern, and this idea works through several
permutations over Johnson’s bass line that moves from an A pedal tone into his most
complex pattern of the piece in measure sixty-two. Here the metrical oscillations cease
and the music finally locks into 4/4. Unlike Shorter’s previous collaborations with
drummers such as Art Blakey and Tony Williams, when the harmonic din rises from
saxophone, Rhodes piano, and bass, the drummer Ishmael Wilburn’s rhythms are
exceedingly simple as they revolve mainly around eighth-notes in the cymbal and the
This all accelerates into the first true improvisation of the music: a six-measure
break for Zawinul to solo modally over an F# Dorian scale. Shorter layers his tenor over
the top with more technical melodic ideas that focus on half-step movements and finally
culminate with ascending quarter notes covering a minor third from G# to B. This final
section is a release for the musicians as they reach the vamp for improvisations. The
band plays through the structured form of collective improvisation until a return of the
Shorter had become more adept at combining his playing styles within the music
as he recorded many of the faster musical interjections on the tenor and added an echo
effect to the mix that placed this technical voice in the background. His soprano soloing
is far more straightforward and is sonically unaltered, thus constructing the illusion of
Traveller” seems to be a conversation between Shorter’s work in the 1960s and his newer
pursuits. The music of Weather Report is structured and composed more like popular
music; it allows for the individual’s creativity, but within the predetermined confines.
“Palladium” from the 1977 release Heavy Weather examines these same formal
structures but gives his fellow musicians far more liberty to explore the music, as there
are numerous improvisatory sections within the confines of the grand structure that is
developed around the strident saxophone melody. This album, which contained
usually included in lists of the best jazz recordings ever. Heavy Weather, however,
features more personnel changes as all but Shorter and Zawinul are replaced.16 Weather
Report added drummer Alex Acuña, percussionist Manolo Badrena, and bass prodigy
Jaco Pastorious. Pastorious’s skill and exuberant personality (which could often come
across abrasively) made him the most noted name, outside of Shorter and Zawinul, to
spend a large amount of time with the group. Often credited with redefining the role of
the electric bass as a melodic and solo instrument, Pastorious was a welcome edition as
16
The ever changing drummer and percussionist positions began take its toll on the band. Alphonso
Johnson, who had grown tired of his demotion to timekeeper as the drummers never seemed to accomplish
such a feat on their own said that: “We would be on tour and we would land in a city. I would be at the
airport watching Joe at the gate greeting the new drummer who was coming in that day while Wayne was at
the baggage check saying good-bye to the drummer who’d played the previous night, saying ‘Well it was
good,’ or whatever Wayne said in his Wayne way” (Johnson/Mercer 175-176).
85
he often contributed as many compositions, if not more, than Weather Report’s senior
members. On Heavy Weather, his second album with the group (the first being 1976’s
Black Market), Pastorius is credited with two tunes, to accompany Shorter’s two,
Zawinul’s three, and Badrena and Acuña’s co-composition of one song. As Pastorious’s
star shined brightly and Shorter faded into the background, a common theory developed
during this time that the bassist was purposefully driving a wedge between the original
leaders of the band. Shorter later explained his withdrawal and perceived growing lack
Everyone talked and wrote about the onslaught of my partners, Jaco and
Joe, but that’s wrong. It was something I was going through myself.
your life, you meet a lot of resistance. A lot of resistance came in the form
of “Hey, you’re not taking care of your music . . . ” But I let everything
go, I didn’t try to do some forced music, which would have been
As Shorter retreated into his religion as a means of coping with his daughter’s continuous
seizures, the music that he did not force still adhered to his normal, lofty standards.
Shorter’s compositions during Pastorious’s reign in the bass chair took full advantage of
“Palladium,” a song named for a club on New York’s Fifty-Second Street next
door to Birdland where Shorter had played in a band opposite Tito Puente in the 1950s,
17
Pastorius’s legend includes not only his Mozartean ability to listen to a concert and memorize the bass
part during the show, but his audition for Weather Report: “My name is John Francis Pastorious the Third,
and I’m the greatest bass player in the world” (Mercer 176).
86
does not utilize Pastorious’s improvisational skills, but his robust playing style and
lightning-fast fingers articulate the repeated figure that rests at the heart of the piece
(Mercer 177).
The pattern, disjointed and rhythmic, spans an octave and a half. Pastorious takes
numerous liberties but retains the character of line. The introduction of “Palladium”
sounds like an electronic fanfare as the densely stacked piano rhythms, coupled with the
root doubled at the octave in the bass and Shorter’s tenor resting above the foundation all
strongly present the chordal progressions centered around an Fm9 chord. The group
moves uniformly through a Shorteresque progression that emphasizes the flow of the
music over traditional harmonic movements (measures five through seven are Fm9-
movement.
conventional in comparison to the synthesized sound effects that herald the beginning of
87
the latter), Shorter spins the melody with several background permutations and concludes
with an open vamp section for improvisations by Weather Report’s co-leaders. This
piece, however, borders on popular music structure as the melodic section (measures
measure presentation of the groove in measures twelve and thirteen before Shorter’s
entrance on the melody presents the primary chordal focus of this division. Accompanied
by a drum section that belongs more in a discotheque than a jazz club, Shorter’s chord
changes accent the first beat and the final sixteenth-note subdivision of the second beat,
the writing of this section as compared to the score of “Mysterious Traveller” is the lack
pattern is written once at the beginning and the primary rhythm is stated in the keyboard.
This piece, despite its obvious popular rock music leanings, is written closer to the jazz
lead sheets that Shorter would produce for Blakey or the Second Great Quintet. Giving
the accompanying instruments a greater amount of freedom recalls the work of the initial
Weather Report album and to Shorter’s work with the Davis electric ensembles.
Following the establishment of the groove, Shorter comes in with his syncopated
melody, which adds to the already complex polyrhythmic foundation established in the
band.
88
The melody itself generally moves in thirds and adheres closely to the written chords.
This is a different style than that found in some of Shorter’s earlier writing and reflects
his emphasis on the commerciality of the music. On the repeat of the melody, Shorter is
doubled by Zawinul creating a new textural quality that, if anything, actually brightens
the sound. This second iteration of the theme leads Weather Report into the vamp section
(Example 5.7).
The final eight measures of “Palladium” (more than any other section in the music) read
as a return to Shorter’s jazz writing. Essentially a set of changes for improvisation, the
melody in this final segment is composed of half and whole notes that move through the
upper extensions of the chord progression, particularly the ninth scale degree. The fifth
of the chord appears twice, and the eleventh and thirteenth are played once, but the
89
remaining twelve notes are ninths. The harmonic progression itself revolves around a
configurations, are directly linked five times, and the same relationship a half step lower
is accented in the final two measures. “Palladium”’s final call demonstrates the synthesis
of Shorter’s inventive harmonic corridors and Weather Report’s popular style into music
Shorter’s career with Weather Report was lengthy and prolific, having produced
in the group’s fourteen years more albums with Zawinul than any other group in which
the saxophonist was associated. While at times it seemed as if Shorter’s heart was not in
the music that he helped to create, his compositions continued to have his trademark
qualities and would introduce other techniques that would proliferate his future
endeavors. His experiments with electronic instruments would dominate, and some
would say doom, his next recordings under his own name. The vamp-heavy grooves he
relied on extensively in these pieces had been a part of his repertory since compositions
outside the increasingly elitist and diminishing groups of jazz aficionados. The success
was respectable by rock industry standards but staggering for jazz. However, after
fourteen years and Zawinul’s usurpation of the music, it was time for the two remaining
co-founders to part ways. Complicating the final years of the group was the death of
Shorter’s daughter and growing alcohol problems in both Shorter and his wife as they
struggled with their daughter’s pained existence (Mercer 206-207). Regardless, Weather
Report, and more specifically the complex relationship between Zawinul and Shorter,
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created an amorphous music that often changed from album to album but maintained a
consistent core sound that had been identified with Shorter throughout his career.
91
While the majority of Shorter’s professional time in the 1970s was occupied with
Weather Report, he did manage to complete an inspired solo project. A festival promoter
who Shorter described as a “hip little Chinese girl” informed the saxophonist of Milton
Nascimento, a popular musician from Tres Pontas in the Minas Gerais region of Brazil
(Mercer 165).18 Brazil has always been a land of rhythmic fascination for jazz musicians,
particularly with the bossa nova style. The inclusion the bossa nova in the jazz repertory
is associated with fellow tenor saxophonist Stan Getz, who produced a number of
recordings (Getz/Gilberto and Jazz Samba among others) featuring the leading artists in
the genre like Antônio Carlos Jobim and João Gilberto. These recordings spawned
several jazz standards including “Garota de Ipanema (Girl from Ipanema),” “Desfinado,”
Shorter himself dabbled in Brazilian rhythms, partially due to the presence of his
Portuguese wife, as early as 1965 on “El Gaucho” released on the Blue Note album
Adam’s Apple (Milkowski). Supernova (1969) featured his version of Jobim’s “Dindi”
with Portuguese vocals by Maria Booker and Brazilian percussionist Airto Moreira
performing on the berimbau and the cuica, traditional Brazilian instruments (Milkowski).
Shorter even covers a song by Nascimento himself on 1970’s Molto Grosso Feio, his last
solo album before his collaboration with the Brazilian singer/songwriter (Mercer 168).
Herbie Hancock had actually met Nascimento while in Brazil for his honeymoon with
18
Minas Gerais translates to “general mines” and is named for the wealth of gold and gemstone mining in
the area. The area’s culture is vastly different from the coastal cities of Rio de Janeiro and Bahia as it is
isolated by a mountain range. This area’s divergence from the perceived culture of Brazil is similar to
Appalachia and New York (Mercer 165).
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wife, Gigi, and, when Nascimento traveled to the United States in 1974, he and Shorter
jumped at the chance to record with the genre-blurring artist (Mercer 164,169).
From his introduction into fame due to his appearance in a 1967 International
Song Festival, Nascimento separated himself from the rest of Brazilian music (Mercer
166). Unlike the tropicalista movement (a musical development that combined bossa
nova, American rock, and folk songs from the Bahia region of Brazil) that emerged at the
same time as Nascimento, the singer’s influences encompassed jazz, folk music, church
melodies, the psychedelic sound of the Beatles among others (167). To this equation, he
added his own level of subtlety and melancholy to create a musical style that could only
be called “Milton” (167).19 An artist of this level of originality would naturally attract the
attention of Shorter and Hancock. With Nascimento’s jazz background, the Brazilian
I knew Herbie and Wayne and all those musicians because they played
with the Miles Davis Quintet. For me, Miles was above everything and
everyone, Miles was a god, and anyone close to him would be at the same
level. I felt that I could die just by being touched by one of those
When Flora Purim, the Brazilian Queen of Jazz and wife of oft-collaborator with
Shorter, Airto Moreira, decided to bring Nascimento to the United States to perform in
her subsequent performance at Montreux, Shorter offered to split the expenses and have
Nascimento and his companions stay at his house in California in order to make a
19
For a festival poster in Copenhagen in which Nascimento performed, all the acts were labeled according
to their style, however, beside Nascimento’s name, the promoter’s merely wrote “Milton” as he really had
no stylistic precedent (Mercer 167).
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recording (Mercer 169). The result was Shorter’s first release for Columbia records:
The composition of the personnel for the recording adequately depicts the various
musical forces at work to create this transnational music. Along with jazz legends
Shorter and Hancock and the chief collaborator Nascimento, the group included two of
musicians from popular music, bassist Dave McDaniel and guitarist Jay Graydon, Flora
Purim’s guitarist Dave Amaro, and Purim’s husband Airto Moreira (Mercer 169). This
unique collection of musicians that generally stretched their own genres would create a
style unique to this record as Shorter vehemently proclaimed that this would not be a pure
Brazilian emulation (170). Regardless, this album was a monumental pairing of the
the music of prestigious American artists. This was an album designed to appeal not just
to fans of Shorter and Hancock; Native Dancer was aimed toward the Brazilian audience
as well. Each of the main figures in the music contributed to recording as there are five
the Lonely Afternoons,” and “Lilia”), three by Shorter (“Beauty and the Beast,” “Diana,”
and “Ana Maria”), and one by Hancock (“Joanna’s Theme”). As much as the three
added to the album, they added even more to each other, with each track containing their
The second piece on the album, “Beauty and the Beast,” is the perfect synthesis of
influence by Hancock’s forays into popular funk music and a touch of Brazilian rhythm
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and percussion driving the keyboard and bass figures. The lyrical and sequential melody
draws upon the folk songs Nascimento embodied. The harmonies, however, adhere to
The formal construction of this work is creative in that there is a primary eight-
introduction, which fixates the music on the downbeat and immediately announces the
funk influence in the work (the melody actually begins in the seventh measure, but acts as
an elongated anacrusis that encompasses all but three-quarters of the first beat), a
sequential melody that emphasizes both chromaticism and quartal relationships slowly
unwinds. The focal point of the two-measure phrases is found at the beginning and is
focal point on the final sixteenth-note of each beat in the first measure. In measure eight,
the pickup to the A section, this focal point is a G followed by ascending intervals of a
major second (A), a minor third (Bb, which also serves as the tritone to the E7#9 harmonic
chord), and a major third (B) before descending back to the G and then yet another major
third to an E (Example 6.1). This pattern is repeated first identically in measures ten and
eleven (though with a slight rhythmic variation) and then sequentially up a fourth in
measures twelve and thirteen. On the return to the A section after a four-measure
interlude, the sequence returns again three times, making this the predominant motive of
The final two intervals of the sequence allude to one of two main harmonic
elements Shorter used to create the chord changes for this work. The augmented triad F,
A, and C# comprises the majority of the emphasized chords in the work. This is due to
the repeated presence of the triad as the ending the sequence and several other phrases are
built on one of these three chords. This organizational tactic is further accented via the
use of the dominant to tonic progression that proceeds each: C7#9 (with the exception of
one occasion) moves to F7 or Fm7, E7 or E7#9 always move to Am7, and Ab7 always
The V-I progression, though one of the most important harmonic movements in
all of Western music, is atypical at times in Shorter’s work since conventionality is often
purposefully avoided in his compositions. Outside of the structural use of the augmented
triad, the harmonic movement of “Beauty and the Beast” is one of the most standard of
his career. This ordinary progression occurs twenty times over the course of thirty-two
chord changes. The overwhelming presence of the V-I, many of which come in the form
of the jazz cornerstone ii-V-I progression, illustrates the more basic elements of jazz,
popular, and folk music that preside over Shorter’s interpretation. Shorter and Hancock’s
work in the popular vein coupled with Nascimento’s folk music background combine to
Despite his best efforts to make the music predominantly simple in harmonic
terms, Shorter’s preference for the tritone relationship appears throughout the work in
several locations. As mentioned above, the melody features a tritone interval between the
root of the harmony (F) and the chromatic escalation in the music (B); however, as this is
essentially a passing tone, its impact is relegated mainly as a wrenching dissonance. The
other prominent use of the tritone sonority is found in the harmonic motion and serves a
character of the melody. The placement of the B half-diminished seventh chord, which
With this substitution, the melodic chord tones over the first three notes change from the
third and the ninth scale degrees into the flatted seventh and the thirteenth scale degrees.
Shorter is again setting his melody in the extended range of each scale.
structure to the foundation established in the introduction and the melody. The first
interlude is essentially a repetition of the funky, rhythmic based introduction. This recall
of the opening pattern, which is more reminiscent of Hancock’s style than Shorter’s,
creates a dialogue between the two old friends and in some way is a competition for
supremacy on the piece. The second four-measure interlude, however, removes all doubt
as to whom is the focus of “Beauty and the Beast.” Shorter’s harmonic changes act as a
turnaround figure, moving in dominant-tonic movements from Bm7 back to the F7 tonal
center of the piece. This progression acts as another instance of the tritone interval
melodic movement in the final measure of the structure. Shorter unleashes a screaming,
pseudo-scalar descent on his soprano saxophone that encompasses two octaves and a
major third, all in sixteenth-notes. This idea, which is drastically different from anything
else in the music, works as both the climax of the piece’s melody and a launching pad for
improvisation as Shorter follows both instances of the melodic form with his solos.
Only Moreira could adequately explain the effect Native Dancer had on his
homeland:
For Wayne to record Milton’s music the way he did, so deeply and with
jazzy roots but that kind of Afro-Brazilian bluesy stuff, it was very well
done. It got the attention of the Brazilians ‘cause he hit right there at the
target and everyone said, “wow, what is this and who is this.” (Mercer
173)
Though Native Dancer was a one-time project and subject to mixed reviews, the results
of recording were beneficial for both Nascimento and Shorter. The album expanded on
the Brazilian’s already growing reputation, specifically in Europe (Mercer Ibid.). As for
Shorter, he earned a new fan base in Nascimento’s home country, earned the respect of
his Brazilian personnel on the album, and created a music he had never approached
before on his own terms. In the original liner notes for the record, Shorter is quoted as
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saying that, “when the album was near to completion, we all knew that authenticity and
honesty had won.” Shorter and Nascimento had created a music that stands alone in
either of the musicians’ repertories, but the impact they had on each other comes alive in
the music. The two still occasionally guest star on the other’s tours if they happen to be
in the same area, and Shorter even appeared on one of Nascimento’s own records. This
album was, however, be the last solo album Shorter produced for over a decade.
While immersed in relentless touring and recording that was assumed in co-
leading one of the most important jazz-rock fusion bands during the 1970s and 1980s,
attempting to further understand his own spiritual journey into Nichiren Buddhism, and
worrying over his daughter’s health problems, Shorter understandably had little time to
compose. When he left Weather Report in 1985, his contract with Columbia Records
stipulated that he was required to produce three solo albums to fulfill his side of the deal
(Mercer 211). After nearly eleven years away from the recording studio under his own
name, Shorter unleashed a flurry of records over the next three years – Atlantis (1985),
Phantom Navigator (1986), and Joy Ryder (1988) – that expanded on the ideas he began
to explore with Weather Report, but was more along the lines of his own thinking rather
Now, with the freedom of writing for a group solely under his name, Shorter felt
like, “I was a kid working with clay again. I said, ‘That’s where I am again now, and
I’ve got to make all the things I can, and get back to that whole world perspective’”
(Mercer 210). Once again, Shorter was able to reinvent his music and his own role in the
compositions. This latest brand of music clearly had the elements he had explored with
Weather Report, Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Milton Nascimento, and his in other solo
99
albums, but this music sounded nothing like anything Shorter had ever recorded before.
This music, also, generally does not sound like jazz, or at least not what one would
expect from someone with such a rich jazz heritage. Shorter’s saxophone solos are still
the dominant force tying these records to the history of his music, but his goal in these
three records for Columbia was not to play music like he had played before. This music
allowed Shorter
world. Some of the selections herein are miniature movies that may never
be made into stories on film. The challenge here was to use the limited
211)
Through Shorter’s love of the cinema, he was now envisioning himself as film composer
While Shorter claimed to be working with “limited elements,” it certainly did not
show in the size of the groups he brought into the studio: fourteen members on Atlantis
and Phantom Navigator and nine on Joy Ryder. He recruited several of his old band
mates from Davis’s groups and Weather Report including Hancock, Alphonso Johnson
and Alex Acuna. Other notable presences on these albums include drummer Terri Lynne
Carrington, pianists Patrice Rushen and Jim Beard, vocalist Diane Reeves (for one song),
and current member of the Wayne Shorter Quartet, John Patitucci. The composition of
Shorter’s band reflected many of the trends in popular music during the 1980s with the
everything from ambient noise to a simulated chorus. He even includes the sound effect
of a roaring monster that simultaneously surprises the listener and draws him or her
further into the environments Shorter was creating. For the recording of Phantom
Navigator, Shorter employed four keyboardists to fill out the symphonic texture of his
writing.
Another noted appearance on these albums is Ana Maria Shorter, who is credited
for vocals and is featured at the beginning of the piece “Yamanja.” Her bizarre
introduction (she speaks the name of the song in a breathy tone with an echo effect) adds
to the creative, if somewhat outlandish, direction in which Shorter took his music in the
late 1980s. Shorter even decided to forgo the standard liner notes on Phantom
Navigator, opting instead to print excerpts from a comic he had written and illustrated as
Though the illustrations are crude and the story even more so, the concept behind one of
Shorter’s earliest creative works inspired the music of the record. With the knowledge
that Shorter was literally taking the listener into another world, the soundtrack-like
environments no longer sound like an immutable drum machine with a din of keyboards
emulating popular music led by a saxophone melody. Shorter used this bevy of
depiction of a scene. The cover of the album alludes to the piece with a surrealistic
illustration of a realistic-looking ocean liner floating above the ocean with a small child
“to conjure . . . visual images. If you want to paint a picture: It’s a large
field, late evening, a big huge UFO descending and hovering over this
entangled in something that is totally alien to them, but at the same time,
Shorter’s music has always had a storytelling element, but with “Flagships” and many of
the other songs he composed for his final three solo recordings for Columbia, this
musical effects which seem to develop on their own. Prominent among these musical
images are the synthesized chorus and an exaggerated swing eighth-note feel. The chorus
effect, which provides the basis of the ominous feel behind music, is present throughout
the entire song and moves in erratic whole notes. This undulating current that acts as the
chordal structure of the piece, in essence, has no structure. The development often
tempts the listener into believing that there is a pattern to the movement, but Shorter
quickly dissipates the notion and move the primordial choir in another direction. As the
clearly not written using a preexisting song form found in jazz music.
Another unifying trait is the loping swing melody (Example 6.3). This technique,
which is written in the score as a series of eighth-note triplets with the second beat of
each group omitted, appears twice as the melody, and again later in the piece in
unexpected locations. Shorter uses this rhythm, rather than the actual notes, as the
melody, since he alludes back to the idea even after the asymmetrical seven-measure
phrase is repeated. This rhythmic quality is part of Shorter’s storytelling element and fits
in with the theme of the piece. Shorter claims that “when you hear the tenor and soprano
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doing some sort of skipping-like melody, di dit da dit da dit, that’s like a young boy and
Shorter’s intentions and his past, one could interpret this story now, as not just any two
brothers, but the composer himself and his older brother, Alan, running through the fields
While the seven measures of the skipping melody could be considered the
melody, the majority of Shorter’s playing never actually sounds improvisatory; which is
not surprising as the majority of the music is through-composed. The result, however, is
another wandering melodic passage that relies upon a constantly shifting tonal center and
variations of the movement within the loping swing section. Several of the passages are
extremely chromatic and many patterns appear throughout this fortspinnung style of
insistent synthesized choir, Shorter layers a complex piano part, throbbing rhythm, and
simulated timpani to add drama and density of the scene. Neither of these elements
seems openly melodic as the timpani accentuates the music as it climaxes, the drums act
as a timekeeper, and the piano is mainly underneath the rest of the music. These musical
tiers color the music, adding to “Flagships”’s ambience. The resulting style resembles
leitmotifs as the emphases on specific patterns, ideas, and instruments incessantly drift
into the foreground and just as quickly, sneak to the back. Shorter’s mysterious themes
never hold the listener’s attention for too long before they are replaced by something else.
His irregular switching between soprano and tenor saxophone establishes each
instrument as a separate voice in his soundtrack with a different location within the sound
20
In a life already filled with tragedy, Alan Shorter died a year after Phantom Navigator was released from
an aortic rupture before his impending marriage to Herbie Hancock’s cousin, Ruth Ann (Mercer 229).
104
pyramid. When the tenor voice is presented, it either replicates the soprano line an
octave below or adds a short musical statement beneath the choral wave. The soprano,
possibly the other brother in Shorter’s narrative, cuts through the ensemble and never
shadows the melodic idea like the tenor. With the majority of the melodic material
presented in the soprano, Shorter’s voice is clearly that of the storyteller as opposed to the
Shorter’s final recordings for Columbia allowed him to compose like he thinks: in
large, sweeping narratives. His compositions were literally telling the stories that he had
created even as a teenager nearly four decades prior. Particularly in live concerts, a story
that began in one night may be carried over to the next (Mercer 219). The music was
cinematic soundtrack with the harmonic depth and complexity of the most progressive
directions of electronic jazz music. Shorter would try to ignite creative inspirations for
the other musicians with riddle-like instruction such as, “The ship’s pulling into the
harbor” or “Sometimes the rabbit runs down the hole, and sometimes the rabbit falls
down the hole” (219-220). He was asking his band, and himself, to “[write] a story with
only verbs” (219). Shorter’s new music seemed to be an artistic response to the popular
music vein of Weather Report, and to create vast cinematic-style landscapes and
environments for his saxophone to venture into, an allusion to the heroic impression of
As inspired as this music was, its public reception did not equal the accolades
Shorter was used to with the Messengers, Miles Davis, or Weather Report. Often the
listeners were unwilling to explore past the legion of overbearing synthesized sounds and
105
erudite subject matter to hear the artistic qualities of this music. While Shorter did not
quit playing after 1988 (he notably created a touring group with Carlos Santana after Joy
Ryder was released that yielded his 1988 live recording at Montreux), he did not
complete another album until 1995. During the interim, Shorter encountered his old band
leader, Davis, for a tribute concert. Held coincidently on Shorter’s fifty-eighth birthday,
August 25, 1991, the visibly emaciated Davis imparted some career advice to his former
sideman. His old mentor looked into Shorter’s eyes and said, “You know, you need to be
more exposed” (Mercer 232). This would seem an odd statement to someone who had
been a member of such legendary groups as the Jazz Messengers, Davis’s Second Great
Quintet, and Weather Report, but this statement was not a comment on Shorter’s musical
associations. At each stop in his career, Shorter played a significant role in musical
direction of the group with his enigmatic compositions and is still renowned for cryptic
instructions achieve the desired results in his music. The problem was, however, that the
others within the group to overshadow him. Granted, attempting to take the limelight
away from personalities such as Art Blakey, Miles Davis, Joe Zawinul, and Jaco
Pastorius, is not an easy task. What Davis was telling Shorter was that he needed to
become the master of his musical vision that is more in line with what had made his
talent stand out to the multitude of celebrated band leaders when he first came to New
music were accurate depictions of the music in Shorter’s mind, their presentation would
lead many a critic to exclaim that he had not released a quality record under his own
name since his time recording with Blue Note in the 1960s.
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Three years later, Shorter decided to follow Davis’s advice and even employed
the man behind many of the trumpeter’s recordings from the 1980s: Marcus Miller.21
Miller, primarily an electric bass player but proficient on numerous instruments, was in
demand equally for his prowess with editing programs. Shorter and Miller were joined
Rachel Z give Shorter’s first Verve recording as a leader, High Life, a definite urban, hip-
hop feel to several of the tracks. Joining the trio in the primary group of musicians are
guitarist David Gilmore, percussionists Lenny Castro and Shorter’s old friend Airto
Moreira, and Will Calhoun on drums. For the song “Midnight in Carlotta’s Hair,” Terri
Lyne Carrington reunites with the saxophonist, an element of continuity from Shorter’s
Columbia recordings of the late 1980s. However, in addition to the bevy of sound
finally received an element absent from even his most ambitious prior works. For the
recording of High Life, Shorter had access to a thirty-two piece orchestra running the
gamut from six violinists and three flautists to two contrabassoons. With this new piece
of musical clay, Shorter’s vivid cinematic images could find a new voice that none of his
High Life, like most of Shorter’s albums, is an experiment in one of the primary
conventions of music. This record, more than any other before or after, explores textural
and stylistic combinations. While much of the music is in a profoundly popular style, the
concept was to combine a studio orchestra, a drum machine, and Shorter’s jazz solos on
all four of the most used instruments in the saxophone family (soprano, alto, tenor, and
21
The recording hiatus was due in part to a contract dispute with a recording company called Elektra since
Shorter had not produced any music for the company and instead elected to record for Verve records
(Mercer 237).
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Shorter’s compositions stemming as far back as his time with Art Blakey and the dense
harmonic material that comprised his works from the previous twenty-five years. Often
the concentration of the chords would raise questions from the orchestra, which was
composed of members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic (Mercer 239). One violinist
asked, “On bar seventy-six, I’m on an A-natural, and the gentleman sitting next to me is
on an A-flat. Is that correct?” (239). The response to his question was laughter and
assurance that not only was this correct, but that they should both play their notes
confidently (239). This unorthodox music, coupled with Shorter’s penchant for musical
atmosphere for the classically trained musicians who would feel more comfortable under
the control of a conductor rather than one of jazz music’s mad scientists.
Unlike his work with his electronic imagination soundtracks, the music on High
Life uses increasingly conventional forms and more organized layering. The fifth track
on the recording, “Pandora Awakened,” clearly delineates the transitions for each
individual section. Following an orchestral introduction that flows seamlessly into the
tenor saxophone melody, the music essentially follows an ABCAB formal construction
with improvisation over the B sections [approximately 2:05 and 4:44 on the track
respectively]. Miller’s bass line grooves are reminiscent of anything from Alphonso
Johnson or Jaco Pastorius when Shorter was with Weather Report, and emphasize
simplicity and rhythm underneath the sweeping strings and woodwinds. The majority of
the formal changes are obvious within the bass line and lead the transitional shifts
between the different motives within the work. The composer’s through-composition has
108
Report and the winding soundtracks of his 1980’s solo albums into music that sounded
Awakened” is exceedingly simple in comparison to his earlier works and even to the
other pieces on the album. The majority of the harmonies in the orchestra are triads. The
voicings chosen by Shorter are generally inversions and do not feature his typical
complexities with alterations and extensions. However, he uses the sonorities of the
chords and the intervallic movement within the backgrounds to add his personality to the
music. The primary motive of the piece is found in three consecutive half notes. As both
the A and B sections are divided into four-measure groupings, the three-note rhythm
pattern begins on the third beat of the third measure. Throughout the A section, the
intervals shift according to what best compliments the tenor melody. The intervallic
distances, however, remain the same as the first two notes are a half step apart, and the
first and third notes are either a major third or its reciprocal minor sixth. Upon reaching
the second thematic section, where Shorter solos over an ostinato-like rhythm section
followed by a counter melody in the orchestra, the construction of the three-note pattern
changes. The initial interval of a minor second remains the same, but the distance
between the outer notes of the pattern has changed to the tritone. As a surprising
compliment to this motion, the chords do not reflect a similar shift. Instead, Shorter
elects to take the traditional ii-V-I progression, and switch the standard sonorities around.
The normal ii-V-I pattern, when used diatonically, is expressed with the supertonic as a
minor chord, the dominant as a seventh chord with the seventh scale degree flatted, and
109
the tonic as a major chord. Shorter maintains the sonorities but switches their locations.
Shorter’s version of the chord progression is AMaj7-Dm13-G7, which shifts the sonorities
The melodic content of the piece is closer to his music written for the Second
Shorter sets his melody in opposition to the orchestral backgrounds, drawing upon call
and response, an element crucial to jazz music since its inception. With “Pandora
Awakened,” Shorter takes the artistic conceptualizations from his last Columbia
recordings and orchestrates them to create accessibility for both the listeners and his
textures give him the freedom to compose a synthesis of the latest styles.
High Life also established a new trend in Shorter’s recordings. The first song on
the album is “Children of the Night,” a song that Shorter had initially written for Art
Blakey and the Jazz Messenger’s album Mosiac in 1961. Revisiting and reinvisioning
music is not something new to Shorter, as already discussed with the rapid transformation
“Children of the Night” was obviously written for a much smaller ensemble and without
the technological advances from the following three decades. The original abounds with
of which lead into ii-V-I progressions, and sequential melodic motives that seemingly
measure opening section with two separate ideas and interrupts it with a bridge that is
110
only eight measures and has many similar elements to the second theme of the larger
division. The opening track of High Life hardly sounds like the same song, particularly at
the outset of the music. The majority of the melody and backgrounds are produced via
synthesizer, and tempo is significantly slower. Blakey’s hard driving swing is replaced
with a smooth R&B beat. The orchestra’s purpose is to enhance the melody and provide
a textural foundation for Shorter’s improvisation. Every portion of the original melodic
material is present in the work, but the order is far from the initial form. The harmonic
progression is very similar, but is often shrouded by the wealth of synthetic layering. The
descending chordal textures from Mosaic act as afterthoughts underneath the sustained
melodic notes. Shorter added a few new motives as well, including a syncopated rhythm
drastic. The piece, inspired by a line of dialogue from the movie Dracula, no longer
retains the driving hard-bop and thick harmonic clusters but instead replaces it with
peppy, popular music style (Mercer 90). Continuing in the same musical direction since
his final albums with Davis, “Children of the Night”, similar to the criticism of Weather
Report, tries to cater to the increasingly divergent audience. The reinvention of his early
compositions on Shorter’s first album for Verve served him well in his next endeavors, as
this album was extremely proficient as Marcus Miller was often burdened with trying to
force the saxophonist to complete the music (238-239). A habit since his days in
Weather Report, Shorter would often continue to compose a work until someone like
Miller or Zawinul would say, “We really only need this” (238). The stacks of music for
111
this record, along with Shorter’s ideas, were limitless; however, this would be his last
album in this style. Following High Life, Shorter would “unplug” from his electronic
experiments and remove his popular music leanings; replacing funk grooves with
introspective improvisation and more freedom within the confines of his compositional
forms. His next ventures would coalesce ideas from all his earlier ventures, yet he would
create a sound unlike anything he had ever recorded, and with a much smaller ensemble.
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The next two years of Shorter’s life were some of his darkest. In 1995, the
October 15 edition of the New York Times printed a scathing article from jazz critic Peter
Watrous (Porter 242). The article, entitled “A Jazz Generation and the Miles Davis
Curse,” was prompted by the release of High Life and according to an editorial in the
November 1996 issue of Downbeat by John Ephland, was the “‘perhaps the worst’
critical broadside ‘leveled at Shorter’” (242). In the article, Watrous argues that while,
“Mr. Shorter, 62, is arguably the most influential living jazz composer . . . he has spent
the last quarter century flashing bits of his grand talent, then finding the nearest drain
down which to dump the rest” (Watrous/Porter 238). He then goes on to lambaste the
entirety of the fusion movement as its commercial leanings no longer yield the results
obtained in recordings such as Bitches Brew and Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters (241).
He then implies that the driving forces behind the fusion movement, Shorter, Hancock,
Davis, and Chick Corea have “lost their nerve” and retreated from mainstream jazz (241).
He even claims that Shorter’s fusion soprano saxophone playing spawned the career of
Kenny G [Gorelick], a major slap in the face to the vast majority of jazz saxophonists
Mr. Shorter’s “High Life,” with its reliance on the most obvious pop back
that’s one of the enduring legacies of Miles Davis: not only did it wipe out
the serious aspirations of a generation but when the time is ripe for Mr.
achievements, he’s blind to see it. And he’s losing money too.
(Watrous/Porter 242)
Shorter was quick to respond to Watrous’s claims that he had strayed from the
music that elevated him to his artistic status. In an interview with the Boston Phoenix in
duty to remain in that place so that you can instruct young people who are
coming up behind you. It’s a duty to them. But to present yourself in only
that known style, that’s dangerous, because the people who are coming up
behind you have to know what individualism is about and to branch off
and not be corralled into an army that . . . follows the head in front of
them, blindly . . . You can cut the arms and legs off and talk about the
(Shorter/Garelick)
This veiled attack on the thinking of not only Watrous but also the “young lion”
movement in jazz under the leadership of Wynton Marsalis and critic Stanley Crouch
(which had long decried fusion as jazz) demonstrates Shorter’s determination to make the
In 1996, Shorter had already formed a new band featuring keyboards (Jim Beard),
electric guitar (Dave Gilmore), electric bass (Alphonso Johnson), and Rodney Holmes on
drums (Mercer 245). His set lists did contain several of his old songs like “El Gaucho,”
“Chief Crazy Horse” (both from Adam’s Apple,) and “Footprints” (245). This band’s
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touring time was cut short. On July 17, 1996, his wife Ana Maria and the Shorters’ niece
Dalila, were onboard TWA Flight 800 from New York to Paris (246). The plane
exploded. Shorter, who had already lost his father in a car accident after his parents had
driven to see him play with the Jazz Messengers, a daughter to brain damage from a
tetanus shot, and his brother from an aortic rupture, had now lost his wife, the driving
force of his life, of twenty-six years (Mercer passim). He did go back and finish his tour
with his band, but it was because he felt Ana Maria would have wanted him to continue
as she had championed his career since they met (248). The next time Shorter would
enter the studio, his music was profoundly different from the raucous, popular-jazz fusion
he had played for over two-and-a-half decades. The next album was acoustic, with only
1+1 was a simple concept recording: take the two old friends and jazz legends,
have them each take a number of selections from each of their repertories, three by
Shorter (“Meridianne – A Wood Sylph,” “Aung San Suu Kyi,” and “Diana”), three by
composed (“Manhattan Lorelei,” and the inventively paired “Visitor from Nowhere,” and
“Visitor from Somewhere”), and a final song from their mutual friend, Dutch pianist
Michiel Borstlap (“Memory of Enchantment”). The liner notes of the record explained
In this recording, the artists call upon the full palette of their musical
resources to paint life’s stories with all the texture of emotion and intensity
the unknown. Musical images emerge and evolve into character and story,
This purposefully esoteric statement leans toward the pair’s Buddhist beliefs as
well as the musical journey that each has attempted throughout his career. The music is
just as adventuresome as Shorter’s electric albums, if not more so, but with the
minimalistic texture, the skill of these jazz musicians is no longer cloaked behind the
mass of sound each surrounded himself with since the Davis quintet began to explore
jazz-rock fusion on Miles in the Sky. Shorter’s choices for his compositional
contributions lean toward his works during the 1970s and 80s. He revives “Diana” from
Native Dancer, and the piece “Aung San Suu Kyi,” which was dedicated to a Burmese
Nobel laureate, was adapted from a gamelan-style melody Shorter wrote for his modern
harmony class at New York University in1952 (Gordon/Mercer 248). Shorter briefly
revisited this theme earlier in his career “Atlantis” (Mercer 248).22 Without the
smattering of instruments distracting the listener from the primary melody, the newer
versions of the music display the possibilities these musicians can create with just the
basic statement. Shorter and Hancock consolidated their nearly seventy years of
combined experience and replicated the emotion the two created if they had performed a
solemn duet while with the Davis quintet three decades prior.
The choice of “Diana” was appropriate for a conversion into this intimate style as
the original recording was minimalistic in comparison with the other tunes on Native
Dancer. The piece was originally written in honor of the newborn daughter of Airto
Moreira and Flora Purim and, like Diana herself, Shorter’s composition had grown up as
22
Hancock’s “Joanna’s Theme” also appeared on Native Dancer, as it seems both composers reached back
into their archives to extract music from the past.
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well (Mercer 172). Gone were the shimmering cymbals and simulated surge from
Shorter and Hancock, creating the emotion current within themselves. While the Native
Dancer version omitted any improvisation, Shorter heavily ornaments this version with
numerous technical devices, emotional wails on the upper end of the normally abrasive
structurally consistent with the original and its mood has been elevated from a solemn
tribute to a celebration. This style of aggressive reimaginations was to become the new
standard for Shorter’s most recent music from High Life through his work in the 2000s.
Instead of adding instruments and heavily orchestrated chords, Shorter returns to the
lyricism of his eclectic melodies and accents the musical possibilities within each. 1+1
was a critical and personal success. “Aung San Suu Kyi” was awarded a Grammy in
1998 for Best Instrumental Composition, and Shorter had found his latest voice.
Ironically, he had moved into the realm that the critic Watrous had insisted he return to:
“acoustic music with intellectual weight” (Watrous/Porter 242). However, Shorter had
arrived on his own terms and with his particular style of intellectualism. Somehow, the
saxophonist was simultaneously recalling his past and looking into the future. In his next
three recordings for Verve, Footprints Live!, Alegría, and Beyond the Sound Barrier,
Shorter revisited twelve compositions that were recorded earlier and were composed for
ensembles other than his personal small group. Most of these pieces receive a similar
treatment to that of “Diana” in that their latest release maintains the essence of the music,
117
but the communication of the theme is indirect and requires a level of concentration and
In the liner notes of 1+1, Shorter and Hancock posed for two pictures and the
saxophonist’s body language clearly explains his goal for the next decade. The cover
photograph shows the two with a black background and a white counter in which only
their head and arms are visible. In this picture, Shorter looks and smiles directly into the
camera and points at the viewer. The second picture on the inside shows the two sitting
backwards in chairs. Shorter has his eyebrow cocked and points to his head. It seems
Shorter wants the listener to think about the music. He is no longer pandering to the
By 2001, Shorter had solidified his new group and musical direction. Much like
Davis and Blakey, Shorter recruited a band much younger than him to inject new life into
his old compositions. The only member of his new group that had recorded with Shorter
before was bassist John Patitucci who appeared on Phantom Navigator. The rest of his
quartet (another sign of Shorter’s return to “mainstream” jazz was the typical group size
of four members rather than the enormous groups he had brought into the studio since
Supernova in 1969) was comprised of drummer Brian Blade and pianist, Panama’s
cultural ambassador, Danilo Perez (Mercer 260). With this group, Shorter finally took
charge the way that Davis had insisted he should back in 1991. He brought in his older
compositions and described how he envisioned the new interpretation, mainly with his
trademark image riddles, cinematic references, and even physical depiction of the mood
(261). As challenging as this music was for the rest of the quartet, the instructions often
created more mental stress. While revisiting the tune “Water Babies,” a song which was
118
recorded with Davis on an album with the same name, Shorter ironically told Perez to
“put more water in those chords” (256). After hearing the pianist’s interpretation, Shorter
previous works outside of 1+1. Shorter’s vision of the sound was, fittingly, drawn from
a scene from the movie Superman (1978). “Remember when Lois Lane was falling from
the building, and Superman swooped down and grabbed her? He said, ‘I’ve got you.’
And she said, ‘Who’s got you?’ That’s what I like to play music with, something like
that” (Shorter/Mercer 256). Village Voice critic Gary Giddins reviewed a concert given
by the newly formed group and echoed Shorter’s intention by stating that each member of
the group was, “not merely backing the soloist, but collaborating with him on each
measure” (Giddins/Mercer 259). The Wayne Shorter Quartet, Shorter’s longest lasting
group as a single, unchanged unit, was created to satisfy the saxophonist’s thirst for
adventure within the music. Simultaneously Shorter took control of both his music and
career and yet gave more freedom to his fellow musicians than he had in years.
The first recording of this new group was on the album Footprints Live!, the title
of which combines “Footprints” (Shorter’s most famous composition from the early
stages of his career) and the word “live,” implying that this product is not the polished,
heavily-edited recordings from his time since the dissolution of the Second Great Quintet.
All the music was recorded from a trio of jazz festival performances in Europe over an
eleven-day span. The track list reads like a retrospective of his compositional output:
piece Shorter wrote for Weather Report), and a readaption of his original arrangement of
119
Sibelius’ “Valse Triste” which Shorter had recorded on his album The Soothsayer for
Blue Note Records. The compositions all retain the primary melodic structure of their
first editions, but Shorter embeds his improvisational ideas within the theme itself and
lets the emotions of the group guide them through the music. Most of the music sounds
In the introduction of “Juju,” Perez alternates between playing on the inside of the piano
or harsh, chromatic accent chords, Patitucci bows long, lingering lines on his bass, Blade
than to a jazz drummer, and the group’s leader whistles into the microphone. This is jazz
music as art music, an intellectual style that reflected the personalities of the group. The
actual tune remains largely intact though it takes just over two minutes before the whole-
tone inspired melody makes an appearance. This music is not what most jazz listeners
would consider the archetype of the music. Footprints Live! could be seen as the next
evolution of Miles Davis’s Second Great Quintet had he not introduced electronic
instruments into his music. The music at times seems chaotic, but it never reaches the
levels of atonal oblivion created by Ornette Coleman or Cecil Taylor. The musicians are
playing within the music and within themselves, which is the next evolution of Shorter’s
thought.
The most recent album from the group, Beyond the Sound Barrier, is another
recording along the same lines. While he uses far less of his earlier works (“Joy Ryder”
and “Over Shadow Hill Way,” both from his groups in the 1980s), the fundamental style
of spontaneous creation remains the dominant trait. With this album, he continues
adapting Western classical music into his personal style that he began with his use of
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Sibelius’s “Valse Triste.” This time, Shorter takes the theme from Mendelssohn’s “On
Wings of Song,” and deconstructs it into its most basic elements. The composer’s ability
to dramatically change his own music applies equally as well to music from over one
hundred and fifty years prior. He retains the melody and then alters the undercurrent of
the original piece to suit his distinctive style of music. This song displays Shorter’s
arranging skills as he accents the premier qualities of Mendelssohn’s original piece while
enabling the skills of the members of his quartet to permeate the music. Perez’s subtle
Shorter’s soprano rendition of the tune, while Blade and Patitucci accent the mood rather
Shorter’s delicate touch with Mendelssohn is not always reflected in his own
works. “Joy Ryder,” originally released on his 1988 recording of the same name, acts as
version uses keyboards to create simulated orchestration as the background hints of brass
lines that, were it not for the obvious popular music style, would not be out of place for a
modern big band. On Beyond the Sound Barrier, Shorter retains the rhythmic dominance
of the work, yet it is presented with saxophone squeals, an exceedingly active bass line
provided by Patitucci, and equally percussive elements from all four members of the
group. The level of communication often has short motives running from one instrument
compositional characteristics throughout his career, his placement of the melody within
the piece is typical of his peculiar style. In a track that encompasses over eleven minutes,
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the first full statement of the melody (which in the 1988 version is at the outset of the
music) is not until five minutes and eighteen seconds. The decision to place the main
melodic material only near the middle and at the conclusion of the work while saturating
the rest of the music with motives and patterns of the theme draws an allusion back to a
conversation Shorter had with John Coltrane before the younger saxophonist joined with
Art Blakey. In one of their practice sessions, the two jazz innovators discussed their
desire to speak “backwards”: start a sentence in the middle and then go toward the
beginning and the end at the same time (Mercer 59). While “Joy Ryder” could be said to
have an extended introduction and then follow the normal style of jazz music with the
including the melodic allusions in the beginning and the mutated version of the melody at
the conclusion, Shorter may have actually spoken backwards. The theme from “Joy
cumulative construction technique, Shorter’s quartet germinates the melody with small
statements and eventually it evolves into a far more complex version than was originally
written.
The second album of the three released by the Wayne Shorter Quartet, Alegría
(2003), is different from the other two, as it was produced entirely in the studio rather
than pieced together from live recordings and the occasional studio session. The album is
arguably Shorter’s greatest critical success since his work in the 1960s. It earned him
two Grammies the year of its release: Best Jazz Instrumental Album and Best
Instrumental Composition for the opening track “Sacajawea.” The word Alegría is
Portuguese for joy, as a remembrance to Ana Maria and for his new wife, Brazilian-born
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Carolina dos Santos.23 In addition to his regular quartet, Shorter brings in a number
rising musicians as well as former collaborators Alex Acuña and Terri Lyne Carrington.
The music selections are a combination of the internationalism of Native Dancer, the
orchestrations of High Life, and the communication of his work with his quartet.
Surprisingly, Shorter only composed half of the dozen tunes. One of the most memorable
tracks on the album is not by his pen, yet it serves as a perfect example of the culmination
composers makes his music extremely appealing to Shorter’s increasing penchant for
adapting classical music for his ensembles. For “Bachianas Brasileiras No.5,” Shorter
duets with cellist Charles Curtis for what initially sounds like a straight-forward
interpretation of Villa-Lobos’s theme. After both Curtis and Shorter present the melody
(Shorter adapts the melody in a similar manner to his quartet style with an emphasis on
the improvisatory elements and ornamentation) over the percussion background featuring
switches into an alternate atmosphere not unlike the dramatic stylistic changes from High
Life. Patitucci’s strident bass line has centered around an A tonal center with consistent
Patitucci’s bass drops a major third into a drone on F. Over this pedal tone Shorter has
Traveller,” only this time there are two distinct yet interweaving solos that could deceive
23
Carolina dos Santos was Ana Maria’s best friend and lived in the Shorter house for years before Ana
Maria’s death. She wanted to return to Brazil, but before Ana Maria was to leave to travel on her ill-fated
flight, she made Carolina promise to stay (Mercer 244). Ana Maria’s reasoning was, “I don’t know why,
but you just have to” (244). Shorter and dos Santos were married in 1999.
123
the listener into believing Shorter is not the only saxophonist on the song. “Bachianas
Brasileiras No. 5” concludes in a manner similar to the duet before the pedal; however,
Shorter’s improvisatory counterpoint is more lyrical. Unlike the first duet where Shorter
focuses on his interpretation of the melody, in the concluding statement, Shorter accents
the cello.
Brazilian style classical music with the influence of compositions of Johann Sebastian
Bach. Shorter’s interpretation seems to draw as much upon the inspiration of the music
as upon the song itself. This track exudes a number of musical qualities that were present
during the Baroque period. Between the improvisatory counterpoint over the ostinato
figure, Shorter’s profoundly ornamented version of the melody after its original
statement, and Patitucci’s walking bass line that moves either in patterns or stepwise
movement (leading into the second presentation of the melody, the bass slowly ascends
the octave chromatically before returning the previously established pattern), elements of
Bach’s influence on music are adapted into a modern Brazilian jazz style.
Over the last decade, jazz music has seen the “return” of one of its greatest
compositional talents. The music created by the Wayne Shorter Quartet, in the studio
recording Alegría, and even with his duet album with Herbie Hancock, exemplifies the
reason why jazz legends Art Blakey and Miles Davis sought Shorter’s sound and
compositions earlier in his career. While this music does contain elements of the musical
narrative he had experimented with over for nearly three decades, Shorter is now
composing and playing within each song. With constant returns to music written and
aspects of music as well as linking jazz to the history of art music both from Europe and
the Americas. His latest growth parallels his mentor Davis in that he takes young talent
into his ensembles to revitalize his old works, create new directions of creativity in jazz
music, and kindle Shorter’s own creative fire. Now, as suggested by Davis over sixteen
years ago, Shorter has reclaimed a space at the forefront of music and is beginning to
Conclusion
music can be difficult to determine. A new song for a jazz musician, especially for small
groups, generally encompasses a melody and chord changes. It is not required for the
jazz musician to compose the expansive amounts of counterpoint or even compose what
the other members of the ensemble play. However, the jazz composer has the difficult
job of expressing his own musical personality yet he needs to leave enough space for
every person who will play the piece to inject their individuality into the music. Wayne
Shorter’s personality is constantly present in his works in ways that few other musicians
could replicate. He has managed to instill his unique voice into every composition for
nearly fifty years. Even when writing music that seemed beneath his talents to certain
areas of his fan base, Shorter remained with his musical vision.
Few members of the jazz community can claim a level of notable collaborations
similar to Shorter’s employment with Art Blakey and Miles Davis, co-leading a
commercially successful jazz-rock fusion group with Weather Report, recording with
Brazilian popular music superstar Milton Nascimento and American musicians Carlos
Santana, Joni Mitchell and Steely Dan (all of which during the late 1970s and 1980s), and
now leading his own Grammy award winning quartet. His compositions line the set lists
of jazz groups throughout the world, and his through-composed works demonstrate the
As seen in this study, many of the reasons for Shorter’s lasting status as one of the
most important living jazz musicians stem from his idiomatic treatments of melody,
awkward lyricism, and unconventional chord progressions. His early works read as
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etudes in combinations of classical music theory and jazz music. “Juju” was written to
explore the whole tone scale and triple meter; “E.S.P.” demonstrated melody in quartal
relationships, and tritone sonorities, harmonic, and melodic movements seemingly litter
form instead of . . . without form,” even standard constructions like those of “Lester Left
Town,” “This Is For Albert,” and pop-stylized “Palladium” transform (Davis 273). Less
conventional forms like those found in “Orbits,” “Infant Eyes,” and “Mysterious
Traveller,” however, displayed the composer’s imagination for creating music that is
instantly recognizable as part of his catalog. His formal diversity even encompassed
styles that forced the music surrounding the melody to change (“Nefertiti” and the
version of “Sanctuary” found of Bitches Brew) and cinematic visions not unlike the
soundtracks of a progressive science fiction film (his electric albums (Atlantis, Phantom
Navigator, Joy Ryder) and High Life). With such diversity in styles and innovations, a
Surprisingly, given Shorter’s reputation within the jazz community, which can
alternate between genius, madman, visionary, enigma, philosopher, and weirdo (often
within the same sentence), there is only one biography: Footprints: The Life and Work of
Wayne Shorter by music commentator for National Public Radio, Michelle Mercer.
Shorter’s lack of publications, particularly with his work post-Weather Report, poses an
even greater issue with an intensive study. While his compositions from the first decade
of his career abound in many jazz sheet music publications, locating the official sheet
music for “Aung San Suu Kyi,” and “Sacajawea,” both Grammy award winners for Best
guess work that, particularly with through-composed music, could miss out on crucial
nuances in the composition. Until Mr. Shorter publishes this music, many studies will be
forced to read much like this one: a combination of a record review and a biodiscography.
music, charting the career of a musician through his albums can provide a comprehensive
evolution of style and skill. As Shorter has appeared in or led well over one hundred
recordings, the volume of recorded material alleviates some of the issues with lack of
published material. Shorter’s critical return as one of jazz music’s leading innovators and
compositional voices will hopefully entice the composer to allow generations of music
scholars, jazz and classical alike, to study the intricacies of his creativity.
As for now, Shorter continues to write and record from his home in Aventura,
Florida, as well as to appear on several recordings (Mercer 254). His most recent
appearance on a record was Herbie Hancock’s 2007 album River: The Joni Letters, a
musical tribute to the work of Shorter and Hancock’s friend and collaborator Joni
Mitchell. The album, which includes a version of Shorter’s “Nefertiti,” was recently
awarded Album of the Year during the 2008 Grammy Awards, an honor that has only
twice been bestowed upon a jazz album in the award’s fifty year history.24 This award
hopefully represents the return of jazz music into American culture even though it will
probably never regain the popularity it held prior to 1950. Musicians such as Shorter and
Hancock, who had long been the subject of ridicule by jazz critics for purportedly
24
The previous occurrence was the Stan Getz’s album Getz/Gilberto in 1964.
128
Wayne Shorter’s career reads much like the hero’s journey so often used in the
movies and comic books he loved as a child. As a budding artist, he received instruction
from the icons of the previous generation including John Coltrane, Art Blakey, and Miles
Davis. At the height of his popularity in the jazz world, he took artistic chances that at
times paralleled his personal struggles plunging him into despair despite moderate
success. During the time that he felt this compositional well had depleted, he found new
life in his religion and philosophy and incorporated them into his music. After struggling
initially with finding an outlet to present his new ideas that would reach the whole of his
jazz audience, he has finally returned to the acoustic world that had made him legendary
decades before. Now, even as he leads the charge for the next generation of jazz
musicians, he never ceases to experiment and bring his inquisitive personality into his
music. It is for this very reason that the music of Wayne Shorter will continue to be
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VITA
Judson Cole Ritchie was born July 19, 1983, in Dallas, Texas. He is the son of
Larry Wayne and Vicki Lynn Ritchie. After graduating in 2001 from Garland High
School in Garland, Texas, he received a Bachelor of Music Education from Texas
Christian University in 2005. In August of 2006, he returned to Texas Christian
University in order to receive a Master of Music in the field of musicology. While
working on his masters, he received the Anna Harriet Heyer scholarship and the Michael
Winesanker Award. He is a member of Golden Key and Pi Kappa Lambda and Kappa
Delta Pi honors fraternities.