Уэйн Шортер: Жизнь и творчество джазового саксофониста

American jazz saxophonist and composer (1933–2023)

Wayne Shorter (August 25, 1933 – March 2, 2023) was an American jazz saxophonist, composer and bandleader. He was acclaimed for his mastery of the soprano saxophone since switching his focus from the tenor in the late 1960s and beginning an extended reign in 1970 as DownBeats annual poll winner on that instrument, winning the critics' poll for 10 consecutive years and the readers' for 18. The New York Times music critic Ben Ratliff described Shorter in 2008 as "probably jazz's greatest living small group composer and a contender for greatest living improviser". In 2017, he was awarded the Polar Music Prize.

Wayne Shorter was born in Newark, New Jersey; the son of Louise and Joseph Shorter. He graduated from Newark Arts High School in 1952. He loved comic books and science fiction growing up, as well as music. Shorter was encouraged by his parents to take clarinet lessons at age 16 and then switched to tenor saxophone prior to enrolling at New York University in 1952. His older brother Alan played alto saxophone before switching to the trumpet in college. While in high school, Wayne also performed with the Nat Phipps Band in Newark. After graduating from New York University with a degree in music education in 1956, Shorter spent two years in the U. S. Army, during which time he played briefly with Horace Silver. After his discharge, he played with Maynard Ferguson. In his youth, Shorter had acquired the nickname "Mr. Gone", which later became an album title for Weather Report.

His early influences include Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane and Coleman Hawkins. In 1959, Shorter joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers where he stayed for four years, eventually becoming musical director and composing pieces for the band. Together they toured the US, Japan, and Europe, recording several albums. During this time, Shorter "established himself as one of the most gifted of the young saxophonists" and received international acknowledgment.

Herbie Hancock said of Shorter's tenure in Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet: "The master writer to me, in that group, was Wayne Shorter. He still is a master. Wayne was one of the few people who brought music to Miles that didn't get changed." Davis said, "Wayne is a real composer. He writes scores, writes the parts for everybody, just as he wants them to sound. Wayne also brought in a kind of curiosity about working with musical rules. If they didn't work, then he broke them, but with musical sense; he understood that freedom in music was the ability to know the rules, in order to bend them to your own satisfaction and taste." Ian Carr, musician and Rough Guide author, said that with Davis, Shorter found his own voice as a player and composer. "Blakey's hard driving, straight ahead rhythms had brought out the muscularity in Shorter's tenor playing, but the greater freedom of the Davis rhythm section allowed him to explore new emotional and technical dimensions." Beyond the Sound Barrier received the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album. Shorter's 2003 album Alegría (his first studio album for 10 years, since High Life) received the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album; it features the quartet with a host of other musicians, including pianist Brad Mehldau, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington and former Weather Report percussionist Alex Acuña. Shorter's compositions, some new, some reworked from his Miles Davis period, feature the complex Latin rhythms that he specialized in during his Weather Report days.

In 2015, producer/director Dorsay Alavi began filming a documentary about the life of Wayne Shorter called Wayne Shorter: Zero Gravity. A number of high profile musicians, including Herbie Hancock, Esperanza Spalding, and Terri Lyne Carrington, performed at a donor event to raise funds for the documentary; two of the largest donations came from the Herb Alpert Foundation and Carlos Santana. In 2018, a four hour preliminary cut was completed. Subsequently, Brad Pitt joined the project with his production company. After some delay, partly due to the Covid crisis, from August 2023, the documentary is available as a three hour miniseries on Amazon Prime Video.

In 2016, it was announced that Shorter, Carlos Santana, and Herbie Hancock would begin touring under the name Mega Nova. Also included within the supergroup was bassist Marcus Miller and drummer Cindy Blackman Santana. Their first show together was on August 24, 2016, at the Hollywood Bowl.

In 2018, Shorter retired from his near 70 year performing career due to health issues. He continued working as a composer, creating a "new operatic work" titled Iphigenia, a loose adaptation of the ancient Greek myth; with Esperanza Spalding writing the libretto and architect Frank Gehry designing the sets, which premiered on November 12, 2021, at the Cutler Majestic Theatre.

Shorter met Teruko (Irene) Nakagami in 1961. They were later married and had a daughter, Miyako. Some of his compositions are copyrighted as "Miyako Music" and Shorter dedicated the pieces "Miyako" and "Infant Eyes" to his daughter. The couple separated in 1964. Shorter met Ana Maria Patricio in 1966 and they were married in 1970. Ana Maria and the couple's niece, Dalila, were both killed on July 17, 1996, in the crash of TWA Flight 800, while travelling to visit Shorter in Italy. Dalila was the daughter of Ana Maria Shorter's sister and her husband, jazz vocalist Jon Lucien. In 1999, Shorter married Carolina Dos Santos, a close friend of Ana Maria. Shorter practiced Nichiren Buddhism for more than 50 years as a longtime member of the Buddhist association Soka Gakkai International. Singer and actress Tina Turner credits Shorter with saving her life. In Turner's 2020 spiritual memoir Happiness Becomes You, she states that Shorter and his wife Ana Maria provided Turner with critical refuge at their home for six months after Turner left her abusive husband, Ike Turner, in 1976. Shorter died in Los Angeles, California, on March 2, 2023, at the age of 89.

In 1999, Shorter received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from the Berklee College of Music. On September 17, 2013, Shorter received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz (formerly Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz). On December 18, 2014, the Recording Academy announced that Shorter was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in honor of his "prolific contributions to our culture and history". In 2016, Shorter was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in the field of music composition, the only jazz artist to receive the honor that year. In 2017, Shorter was announced as the joint winner of the Polar Music Prize. The award committee stated: "Without the musical explorations of Wayne Shorter, modern music would not have drilled so deep." On April 29, 2022, Shorter's home town of Newark NJ renamed a street in his honor. Park Place was renamed "Wayne Shorter Way". On April 22, 2023, the BBC Radio Three magazine program J to Z broadcast a 90 minute tribute edition for Shorter, hosted by Julian Joseph. In August 2023, Herbie Hancock hosted a tribute concert at Hollywood Bowl, featuring a large number of performers including Carlos Santana and Joni Mitchell.