October 16, 2024
Five Things You Should Know About the Wayne Shorter Tribute
By Rusty Aceves
The late jazz icon Wayne Shorter’s last band returns to the Miner stage for this two-night tribute to the master, joined by saxophone great Mark Turner. Here are five things you should know about the shows.
- Wayne Shorter left an enduring legacy as one of the great saxophonists and composers in jazz history.
In a legendary career spanning over six decades that included monumental memberships in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Miles Davis's iconic 1960s quintet, and the fusion superband Weather Report in addition to an incomparable path as a leader and innumerable appearances as a sideman, saxophonist Wayne Shorter led multiple distinct musical lives.
As a bandleader, his output over 25 albums ran the gamut from hard bop and the avant-garde to funk and contemporary orchestral music, introducing a host of modern standards including “Footprints,” “Black Nile,” “Speak No Evil,” “Atlantis,” “Masqualero,” “JuJu,” “Adam’s Apple,” “Orbits,” and “Joy Rider,” among others.
Shorter was named an NEA Jazz Master in 1998, received 12 GRAMMY awards and the 2015 GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award, and became a Kennedy Center Honoree in 2018. SFJAZZ honored him with the SFJAZZ Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. He passed away in March of 2023. - Shorter’s quartet with Danilo Pérez, John Patitucci, and Brian Blade comprised jazz's finest small group of the last three decades.
In 2000, Shorter assembled his longest-lived group with Pérez, Patitucci, and Blade to reimagine the music from across his career and blaze new trails, forging a singular ensemble sound possessed of a superhuman level of musical telepathy and improvisational power.
Each member of the band is rightly considered among the greatest instrumentalists in jazz and bandleaders in their own right, and together they have created a whole that is far more than the sum of their considerable parts.
Fully aware of the quartet’s potency for in-the-moment exploration, Shorter chose to record the band almost exclusively in live settings, and their 2002 debut, Footprints Live!, was assembled from performances recorded during their inaugural European tour in the summer of 2001.
Following the 2003 Verve studio album Alegría that was split with varying lineups including pianist Brad Mehldau, saxophonist Chris Potter, and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, the quartet’s masterful 2005 Verve release Beyond the Sound Barrier was culled from two years of live concerts.
After an eight-year break in recording, Shorter’s 2013 Blue Note quartet album Without a Net was his first for the label in over four decades, netting a GRAMMY and DownBeat magazine Critics Poll wins for Jazz Album, Jazz Group, Soprano Saxophone, and Jazz Artist of the Year. The final recording released in his lifetime, 2018’s Emanon was co-produced with Blue Note label head Don Was and is an expansive 3-LP hybrid live and studio concept album featuring the quartet and 32-piece orchestra.
In 2024, Blue Note released Celebration Vol.1, the first in a planned series of recordings curated by Shorter shortly before his death to celebrate the 60th anniversary of his signing to the label. It is a stunning live performance recorded at Sweden’s Stockholm Jazz Festival in 2014 and is a fitting tribute to a remarkable band at the height of its power. - The Pérez, Patitucci, and Blade trio released a beautiful tribute to Shorter’s influence with 2015’s Children of the Light.
After the release of 2013’s Without a Net, Danilo Pérez, John Patitucci, and Brian Blade went into the studio to record their trio debut for Mack Avenue Records, entitled Children of the Light in honor of Shorter and his impact on their lives and careers. Featuring a version of Shorter’s “Dolores” along with seven originals by Pérez, three by Patitucci, and one by Blade, the album is a loving tribute to Shorter's fearlessness and explorational spirit, embracing the ethos expressed by the saxophonist when defining what jazz means to him – “I dare you!”
In Pérez’s words: “When I gave Wayne a copy of the recording I told him: ‘this is for you, doctor. This is our gift. This is our show of love, care, and gratitude for all the lessons.’” - Standing in for Wayne Shorter is saxophonist Mark Turner.
One of the most influential tenor saxophonists of his generation, Mark Turner is an artist whose searching, exploratory approach makes him a natural choice to honor Wayne Shorter’s legacy. A former member of the SFJAZZ Collective (2010-12), the 58-year-old Turner absorbed a good deal of Shorter’s elliptical phrasing while honing a cool blue-flame tone that’s all his own. He’s a veteran bandleader with 16 albums under his belt who has also worked extensively in the collective trio Fly with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard and lent his sinuous tenor voice to work with Kurt Rosenwinkel, Billy Hart, Tom Harrell, Jimmy Smith, Joshua Redman, Robert Glasper, and his former Collective bandmate Edward Simon. With the Collective, Turner participated in recordings and tours devoted to the work of Horace Silver in 2010-11 and Stevie Wonder in 2011-12.
After a series of recordings on the ECM label including the superb sessions Lathe of Heaven (2014), Temporary Kings (2018), and Return from the Stars (2022), his latest is Live at the Village Vanguard for the Giant Step Arts label featuring trumpeter Jason Palmer, bassist Joe Martin, and drummer Jonathan Pinson. - These performances at SFJAZZ are don’t-miss highlights of the 2024-25 Season.
Danilo Pérez, John Patitucci, and Brian Blade reuniting on 10/31 and 11/1 are highly anticipated, bittersweet occasions that represents their first joint appearances on the Miner Auditorium stage since the January 2019 tribute concerts curated by Herbie Hancock to benefit Wayne Shorter’s medical expenses.
The four concerts that week featured the trio plus guests including Hancock, Terence Blanchard, Branford Marsalis, Joshua Redman, Ambrose Akinmusire, Kamasi Washington, and Terrace Martin. SFJAZZ broadcast those concerts on sfjazz.org as part of the COVID-era Fridays at Five streaming series, raising $140,000 for Shorter’s medical fund.
Danilo Pérez, John Patitucci, and Brian Blade with special guest Mark Turner perform on 10/31 and 11/1. Tickets and more information are available here.