Event Details
Date: Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Start Time: 9:00 PM
Event Type: Concerts, Special Events
Last Updated: June 23, 2012
Views: 7
Wayne ShorterWayne Shorter's continually expanding body of work is inextricably linked to the history of modern music. His music transcends genre while keeping the improvisational genius and surprise of jazz burning at the center. Regarded as one of the most significant and prolific performers and composers in jazz and modern music; Wayne Shorter has an outstanding record of professional achievement in his historic career as a musician. He has received substantial recognition from his peers, including 6 Grammy Awards and 13 other Grammy nominations to date. He has been awarded Honorary Doctorates from New York University, the New England Conservatory and the Berklee College of Music. In 1997, the National Endowment for the Arts presented Shorter with the prestigious Jazz Master Award. Shorter's childlike imagination and ceaseless innovation in music invite comparison to the enduring vitality of Picasso in the world of art or of Bergman in film. Today, Shorter continues to dazzle audiences with his Quartet and his Symphony project, creating some of the most powerful music of his career.Even if the prolific composer had never written a single tune, his signature sound and choice of notes, sense of economy and unparalleled expression on both tenor and soprano saxes would have earmarked him for greatness. Combine the writing prowess with the fragmented, probing solos and the enigmatic Buddhist philosopher presence and you have the makings of a jazz immortal. Life is so mysterious, to me, says Shorter. I cant stop at any one thing to say, Oh, this is what it is. And I think its always becoming, always becoming. Thats the adventure. And imagination is part of that adventure.Born in Newark, New Jersey on August 25, 1933, had his first great jazz epiphany as a teenager: I remember seeing Lester Young when I was 15 years old. It was a Norman Granz Jazz at the Philharmonic show in Newark and he was late coming to the theater. Me and a couple of other guys were waiting out front of the Adams Theater and when he finally did show up, he had the pork pie hat and everything. So then we were trying to figure out how to get into the theater from the fire escape around the back. We eventually got into the mezzanine and saw that whole show Stan Kenton and Dizzy Gillespie bands together on stage doing Peanut Vendor, Charlie Parker with strings doing Laura and stuff like that. And Russell JacquetIlinois Jacquet. He was there doing his thing. That whole scene impressed me so much that I just decided, Hey, man, let me get a clarinet. So I got one when I was 16, and thats when I started music.