Wayne Shorter has passed away

[Hoppy T. Frog]

Never knew about that Timmons album!

[Kevin Bresnahan]

14 hours ago, Chuck Nessa said:

Had the lp with an orange stereo sticker back in the day - replaced it with this cd -

 

I'm playing this CD as I work today and one of the tunes that I always love playing is Wayne's first take at "Tom Thumb". I am so used to hearing it as part of "Schizophrenia" with James Spaulding's alto in there that this quartet version always surprises me when Wayne starts playing the melody.

 

Edited March 10, 2023 by bresna

[sidewinder]

For anyone who can pick up UK BBC4, there is a broadcast of Wayne Shorter at the London Jazz Festival (presumably Barbican) tonight (Sunday 19 March) at 9.10 pm (half an hour).

Edited March 19, 2023 by sidewinder

[mjazzg]

3 hours ago, sidewinder said:

For anyone who can pick up UK BBC4, there is a broadcast of Wayne Shorter at the London Jazz Festival (presumably Barbican) tonight (Sunday 19 March) at 9.10 pm (half an hour).

Thanks, I'd not spotted that. I was at the concert 

[sidewinder]

4 hours ago, mjazzg said:

Thanks, I'd not spotted that. I was at the concert 

Would have missed this but for a chance check of the TV listings.

I guess this must have been originally broadcast back in 2001, hadn’t previously seen it. My recollection is that Wayne played a fair bit of tenor but was possibly a bit ‘underpowered’ at times on the blowing front. Maybe the sound didn’t help. *

* - Updated to say that my recollections are of the Barbican performance, which according to the Internet was 2006, was definitely at that one. If this 2001 gig was at the RFH, not entirely sure if I was at that one. How frustrating !

Edited March 19, 2023 by sidewinder

[mjazzg]

I was at the Barbican, don't recall a RFH gig but I did see the quartet twice. 

[sidewinder]

Definitely RFH in 2001, according to this program.

They got the tune titling wrong on the first number - not ‘Sanctuary’ but ‘Chief Crazy Horse’ I think.

Nice to see that snippet of Weather Report film with Eric Gravatt on drums.

[mjazzg]

16 hours ago, sidewinder said:

Definitely RFH in 2001, according to this program.

They got the tune titling wrong on the first number - not ‘Sanctuary’ but ‘Chief Crazy Horse’ I think.

Nice to see that snippet of Weather Report film with Eric Gravatt on drums.

That's interesting because I thought it was not RFH as there was no choir stalls or organ behind them. It looked like a Barbican backdrop to me.

The WR clip was fabulous 

[clifford_thornton]

Seeing the Timmons LP cover referenced before, I had no idea this is what it sounded like. Strong stuff.

[JSngry]

Almost 60 years after the fact, that Timmons album remains curiously and inexplicably underheard.

[sidewinder]

5 hours ago, mjazzg said:

That's interesting because I thought it was not RFH as there was no choir stalls or organ behind them. It looked like a Barbican backdrop to me.

The WR clip was fabulous 

Everything about the production of that programme was sort of odd. I agree that it had more of a Barbican look to it, although there is an online review from 2001 which says RFH. I’m still not sure I was at that performance but around that time I did see Wayne and co. at Poole Lighthouse, so might have been part of the same tour. I’ll have to see if I can find the old concert tickets.

It turns out that this show was originally made for the ‘BBC Knowledge’ channel, a short lived entity that preceded BBC4. Probably originally broadcast once at some impossible hour, which would explain why I never saw it at the time. Might also explain the slapdash tune titling.

Edited March 20, 2023 by sidewinder

[Clunky]

I've been trying to pin down exactly when I saw Wayne in concert. I saw him twice in the late 80s at Edinburgh's Queenshall and then "recently" at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh. I say recently but found on googling it that it was twenty years ago in 2003 ! One of the late 80s dates was April 1988. I found online a concert promotion flyer that reminded me that twenty days after seeing Wayne Shorter I saw Sonny Rollins, both in Edinburgh.  Talk about tenor titans...

[sidewinder]

Maybe the Poole Lighthouse gig I saw was in 2003 as well. That feels about the right timeframe I think. That was the gig I ‘hijacked’ him near the band bus to sign some LPs.

[JSngry]

Am I correct that Wayne's last studio work was on the last Esperanza album?

[Mark Stryker]

8 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Am I correct that Wayne's last studio work was on the last Esperanza album?

That's the final appearance with him playing (at least that we know about), but there is a spoken-word appearance on the new Lakecia Benjamin record. 

 

 

 

Edited March 21, 2023 by Mark Stryker

[JSngry]

Interesting! Was that recorded especially for the album?

[Mark Stryker]

45 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Interesting! Was that recorded especially for the album?

Don't know ...

[Ken Dryden]

Did anyone else read "Wayne Shorter: In Memoriam" by the new "Senior Editor" at Jazz Times? 

I've never heard of her. If it is typical of this professor's writing, I don't imagine that the magazine will last for long under the new ownership.

Wayne Shorter deserved a better sendoff from someone like Mark Stryker, Ted Panken, Willard Jenkins or practically any better known jazz journalist whose work has been established for decades and is cited by board members.

Publicist Terri Hinte shared it with me and told me how negative the reaction was on Twitter (which I don't use, though I saw some of the remarks). Needless to say, I am not rushing to subsidize this substandard writing by subscribing.

https://jazztimes.com/features/tributes-and-obituaries/in-memoriam-wayne-shorter/

 

[sidewinder]

Reads like a personal and somewhat idiosyncratic tribute to me and definitely not an obituary. Seems to stop at 1949 !

[Ken Dryden]

Far better is Bill Milkowski's Downbeat obit:

https://downbeat.com/news/detail/in-memoriam-wayne-shorter-1933-2023

 

 

[JSngry]

3 hours ago, Ken Dryden said:

Far better is Bill Milkowski's Downbeat obit:

https://downbeat.com/news/detail/in-memoriam-wayne-shorter-1933-2023

 

 

Except that his last record was not the Detroit thing. It was on Esperanza Spaulding's Songwriters Apothecary Lab on which he plays quite strongly. 

[Ken Dryden]

Alternately, Milkowski may be talking about Shorter’s final recording as a leader, though your point is valid.

In any case, it is far better than the mess made by the JT editor.

[JSngry]

I can't get into that JT site 

[Ken Dryden]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

I can't get into that JT site 

I couldn’t either, I will have to find the email of it Terri sent me

[JSngry]

Who wrote it?