Wayne Shorter--And Miles

I'm reading Footprints: The Life and Music of Wayne Shorter this week. It's a fascinating book because Wayne Shorter is a fascinating man. For one thing, he's a master tenor and soprano saxophone player, and he's written a lot of the most beautiful and original compositions in the jazz book. He's also a devout Buddhist, and his practice has seen him through some big-time (i.e., not self-chemically-induced) tragedies in his life. I've loved his music since I first heard Weather Report (at my art teacher's place in '72) and In a Silent Way (at the house of Billy Jeralds, the guy who hosted practices, cobbled together amps, played guitar and sang). And the new acoustic quartet he's fronted since 2001 put on one of the most thrilling jazz shows I've ever been to a couple of years back.

Tonight I was listening to some of the later, post-Weather Report music he made before the new acoustic quartet between '85 and '96. (Unfortunately, Rhapsody only has the album designed to accompany the biography--which has a lo t of other nice Weather Report music besides.) It's fusion-y, all right, but that's as much a matter of the real smooth L. A. production and Shorter's choice of synthesized over "natural" instruments. Voiced or arranged a little differently, some of those pieces could be Henry Threadgill's--so I'm suspecting there's more there than the rather pleasant but unassuming music that first meets the ear.

Also tonight listening to Panagea as I type. Wow, Pete Cosey is a mad genius guitarist. He and Sonny Fortune really were the spark for this band's tinder. And they burned it down to ashes. Hey--just realized the long slow stuff on Panagea and Agartha is proto-ambient--just like "He Loved Him Madly" on Get Up With It!