Remembering the Night Dreamer, Wayne Shorter
In the last eight months, we lost two of our great living saxophonists, Pharoah Sanders and Wayne Shorter. Both were associated with John Coltrane in the 1960s and helped to carry his torch forward and push the boundaries of jazz.
Sanders had a recent resurgence because of his work with the electronic artist Floating Points. Jackson Todd explored his back catalogue in a great piece for us back in November. But Shorter isn’t as well known to younger listeners, and maybe the only reason I know about him is that I used to be a bit of a saxophonist myself.
It’s weird to call him by his last name, “Shorter,” since jazz musicians tend to just call him Wayne. “That’s a Wayne tune,” they’ll say at jam session. Or maybe, “that guy plays like Wayne.”
What does it mean to play like Wayne? It’s not easy to describe. Imagine hearing a group of monks sing a battle chant, or a group of warriors sing a prayer. Wayne’s saxophone playing is both fierce and sensitive, like a majestic apex-predator (a tiger, perhaps) who is fast asleep and dreaming on the forest floor.
You may have already heard his playing if you’re a fan of Miles Davis. When Miles and Coltrane parted ways after touring Kind of Blue (a killer album, by the way) in 1960, Miles needed a new saxophonist. He needed a new band, in fact, and he found that band in the form of Wayne Shorter, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Tony Williams. This band is sometimes called the “Second Great Quintet,” and it operated through middle part of the 1960s and produced classic albums like E.S.P, Miles Smiles, and Nefertiti. For the first time in a while, Miles took more of the back seat in writing the songs, and many of the most memorable cuts from this period were written by Wayne. Check out “Footprints,” for example.
“Footprints” isn’t exactly cocktail-party jazz. It sounds mysterious and stripped-down, with a lot of space and sparseness and frequent changes in tempo. At this point in jazz history, Miles and his band were experimenting by taking things away rather than adding them. They were trying to create something new by putting themselves in unfamiliar territory.
The pace of their exploration was unmatched. By the end of the 60s, the band had managed to essentially push themselves out of the genre of “jazz” as it was traditionally conceived. On Filles de Kilimanjaro, they were playing quasi-breakbeats and other grooves pulled from James Brown’s playbook. On Bitches Brew (which could easily soundtrack a psychedelic film), Miles went on to explore electronic instruments and Hendrix-style guitar riffs. The song “Sanctuary” on this album was written by Wayne and sounds like a some otherworldly prayer or act of devotion.
Wayne’s albums as a bandleader are worth exploring too. They’re super different from Miles’ work, but straight-up gorgeous and powerful in their own way. Night Dreamer from 1964 is exactly what its title suggests: nocturnal and dreamlike. I could imagine these songs soundtracking a noir movie directed by Hayao Miyazaki (does this exist? It should).
A few records later Wayne came out with Speak No Evil, which is in the running for my favorite record of all time. This one is the real battle-cry, though I’m not sure what the battle is for, or who it’s with. I put this on when I want to feel empowered and invigorated. Freddie Hubbard (whose birthday was last week) plays stunningly and so does Herbie Hancock and the rest of the band. When Wayne launches into his solo on the first track, “Witch Hunt,” drummer Elvin Jones plays this crazy drum-fill that I once saw people fervently celebrating on a jazz Facebook group circa 2016.
If you’re less into jazz, I recommend Wayne’s 1975 album Native Dancer, which he made with Brazilian rock artist Milton Nascimento. It’s funky and heavily danceable, especially the first track “Ponta de Areia,” which, I’ve heard, is a certified classic in Brazil to this day.
When I was younger, my dad used to drive me up to Montreal Jazz Festival each summer and we’d see Wayne play with his last quartet. This was around like 2012, 2013, and Wayne was still going strong. Sometimes the band would play a single song for 20 or 30 minutes, always charting unexplored territory like a crew of astronauts in deep space. Wayne, who was a long-time Buddhist, would sometimes just stand there and listen closely to his bandmates play without adding much, just a note here and there. I feel like from him I learned that music is a team effort. Everyone shines together.—Will Powers
