Details
Synopsis
As Michelle Mercer's introduction to her biography of the great jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter is at pains to point out, her subject didn't arrive overnight at his status as jazz elder statesman. For most of his career a "musician's musician," Shorter managed to be part of many of the significant jazz movements of the second half of the 20th century. Born in 1933 in Newark, New Jersey, he attended New York University, where he further developed his innate compositional skills. Upon graduating in 1956 he played with many local bands, soon gaining a reputation as the "Newark Flash," though his career was interrupted by a stint in the army. But his reputation endured, and on his discharge he began a friendship with John Coltrane, as well as landing a job with trumpeter Maynard Ferguson's big band. A stint with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers followed, where the musician first came to public attention through his soloing talent--which had been favorably compared to Coltrane's--and for several of his compositions. However, as Mercer reveals, his first glimpse of the real big time came in 1965, when he was invited to join Miles Davis's band by the trumpeter himself. Using interviews with Shorter, as well as recollections from friends like the pianist Chick Corea, Mercer ably documents the saxophonist's public and personal life, including the heartbreaking brain damage suffered by his daughter that led to his withdrawal from Davis's band, his cross-genre collaborations with the rock band Steely Dan and the singer Joni Mitchell, and the tragic death of his wife, Ana Maria, on TWA Flight 800 in 1996. Shorter emerges as a mystical and occasionally mystifying figure, whose late conversion to Buddhism informs both his music and his spirit.
| Size | | Length: | 298 pages | | Height: | 9.5 in | | Width: | 6.5 in | | Thickness: | 1.0 in | | Weight: | 19.5 oz |
Industry Reviews
"[A]n elegant, questing biography into the mindset of the great jazz sax man....[T]he author acquits herself admirably, going straight at Wayne Shorter as he veers this way and that, musically and verbally."
Kirkus (12/01/2004)
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