Wayne Shorter in the New Yorker

[medjuck]

Me three.

[Ethan Iverson]

I can't find the quote offhand, but Branford Marsalis (who inadvertently titled the Chamberlain bio AN UNSUNG CAT) tells of a lesson with Wayne where Wayne demonstrated how to play on rhythm changes. I'm paraphrasing but Wayne played (on his horn) examples of how Lester Young, Charlie Parker and Warne Marsh played rhythm changes. I have no problem (especially listening to that early "What Is this Thing" solo) declaring Wayne knew Warne's music and was directly influenced by Warne. [I keep staring at this page, checking if I am typing Warne and Wayne in the right places or screwing it up...]

Warne, like so many greats, remains "unsung," but in his case I think more people (per capita jazz fan or whatever dumb metric) are hip to Warne than ever. He's just too awesome to ignore. In Chamberlain the author finds all these tenor players like Bill Perkins or Bob Cooper that had way more cheerleading press at the time than Warne. I have NOTHING against Perkins or Cooper (they were right in there) but c'mon....

Mark Turner and so many other "young" players regard the Tristano school as a natural and valid influence. Mark was the one who wanted to include Warne's "Dixie's Dilemma" on TEMPORARY KINGS.  I can't know this for sure but if you spun the dial a few decades back I think "conventional" players had much less of an overt relationship to the Tristanoites. Back then it seemed to be more like an esoteric thing, not part of the mainstream. Tootie Heath (who loved playing with Warne) told me, "We don't talk about Lennie Tristano enough," but honestly I'm just not sure if that's true anymore. I was just approached to be a part of Tristano centennial celebration next year at a major university; I guess we will see but I suspect that Tristano at 100 will be a fairly visible date among jazz fans and within the industry. (I was part of the cabal that got Tristano into the Ertegun Hall of Fame a few years ago.) As Tristano rises into proper place in the pantheon, I am certain that Warne's star will keep rising as well.

Some of the lack of connections between, say, Warne, and the rest of the jazz community a few decades ago was probably partly the result of the insular Tristanoite vibe. Gerry Teekens told me when he offered Warne a Criss Cross date with Hank Jones, Warne said, "Who's Hank Jones?" 

For myself, these days I frankly worry more about Hank Jones's status as an essential American artist more than Warne Marsh's. But we will see what happens as the years roll by...

[Steve Reynolds]

39 minutes ago, Steve Reynolds said:

Evan Parker told a friend of mine (who produces jazz records/runs a small great label) that he plays for the “front row” when he was asked if he would play a bigger  very famous spot in NYC if he my friend could have gotten him the gig. 

Glad to know he’s playing for himself and people like some of us. 

A new young (maybe he’s just turned 23?) friend of mine who is new to the more outre jazz and has loved the first three shows we’ve gone to together.

First was Mary Halvorson duet with Randy Peterson!!!! which we both loved. Being my pal is a guitarist and we were 5 feet away, I think he was a bit amazed to actually see Mary live, chat with her, etc. 

Second was opening night of Vision Fest - celebrating Dave Burrell - but the memorable sets were a surprising good quartet with Archie Shepp playing way better than I figured he could - with Burrell & William Parker & Hamid Drake in graceful complementary modes  - but the last set with Edward “Kidd” Jordan elevating took both of our collective breaths away (is that a poor cliche?)

THEN we went to see Tony Malaby with a new quartet with Ben Monder (long time associate and well known guitarist, Tim Dahl on electric bass & Gerald Cleaver replacing the listed Ches Smith. He was thrilled by seeing those who left quickly after the first set stunned and not to thrilled to hear what they heard maybe expecting something somewhere near what they think jazz might be. 

The ones who loved it stay or care for the second set and it was probably the strongest 50 minutes of live music I’ve heard over the last 9 months or maybe a year. Legacy? Don’t think so. The guys in the band were fucking glowing when it ended. Who cares who was there but my friend and I were.

Quoting myself as I wanted to add one last thought / my friend thought that the last of the three shows was BY FAR the “best” for him and it was easily the most seemingly outside the “mainstream” of jazz. Better for me as well? No the duo with Mary & Randy was the “best” for me at that time.

But which band would I choose to see this weekend? I think TODAY without question the one with that guitar & electric bass with all those pedals & drones with the great “jazz” drummer Gerald Cleaver playing “kind of in a non-jazz way” with Tony Malaby playing tenor & soprano saxophone in both a “jazz” & “kind of in a non-jazz way” and often both ways at the same time.

my friend was fascinated that Malaby ended the second set playing his tenor saxophone in a manner that might even recall Wayne Shorter or Warne Marsh. The one guy we never hear in Malaby is Coltrane for whatever that is worth. Plus it’s really a stretch to hear anyone other than Malaby in Malaby.

Edited August 28, 2018 by Steve Reynolds

[Brad]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

Cecil Taylor was once asked how he felt about 3/4 of his audience leaving before the first set was over. His answer was along the lines of "screw 'em, I play for the 25% that stay."

That's the whole thing in a nutshell, really. You don't worry about the people that aren't there, you serve the ones that are. And so be it.

I don't know if this is a reference to the edits that the New Yorker made to Ethan's article but if it is, they're trying to sell magazines in a difficult environment.  Perhaps when Whitney Balliett was writing, you would have seen very long articles but this is a different age.  My family has subscribed to the New Yorker since the 1930s and I remember as late as the 90s, the New Yorker excerpting books. I read many a book or most of it in the New Yorker. Unfortunately, those days are long gone and Vanity Fair, their corporate owners, expect things more topical and are more focused on the bottom line, not that the prior owners weren't interested in making a profit. 

[Joe]

4 hours ago, JSngry said:

Put me down in the camp that is not fully convinced that Wayne owed a substantial "stylistic" debt to Coltrane. I get where that comes from, and yeah, I suppose it's there as a "macro influence". But Baraka's "weird as Wayne" thing is front and center from about as close to jump as I know about (and again, listen to some/the Vee-Jay sides before forming too many opinions about the BNs.

This is, for me, about as "wholly Wayne" a theme and variation/expansion/whatever as you'll find on a pre-Super Nova (and side-by-sides of those compositions with the versions that Niles did, is significantly revealing) Shorter BN record. Too bad it was relegated to the vault for 10-15 years.

 

Yeah. Just spun this one again. It's surprisingly "cool" in some respects. I'm with you that Trane is often over-stated as an influence on Shorter's work. But I guess he kind of invited those comparisons with a record like JUJU...

Am I crazy or did Stan Getz at one time call Wayne one of his favorite tenor players? There are certainly times when I can feel a Getz influence swooping through Wayne's phrasing and coloring.

 

[Ethan Iverson]

Oh I guess the last thing I'll just note before ducking out of this thread is that my work for the New Yorker is at the Culture Desk. In other words, the New Yorker "blog." I haven't been in the print mag. I think the Culture Desk and the print mag are fairly different in terms of what gets accepted or not and perhaps even editorial style. Richard Brody also writes nice stuff about jazz for the Culture Desk with some frequency, but, as far as I recall, there's something about jazz in the print mag every few years (if it is even that often). 

Alex Ross is someone who writes about music for both the print mag and the Culture Desk. I haven't done it but I suspect if you compared what Ross piece was in what venue it would give some insight into what David Remnick (or whoever is ultimately in charge of the New Yorker) thinks about what goes where.

To be clear, I still am thrilled to be writing for the New Yorker even if it is only online, and I also really appreciate the pro editorial job I get from the staff there -- even though some of the changes (and the famous addition of commas in every possible instance) are sometimes a little shocking. ("I worked so hard for that sentence, do you have to take it out?!?")

In an interesting look at the mag's 50s years, Franzen writes, "Outside the offices of The New Yorker, its fiction editors were rumored to routinely delete the final paragraph of any story accepted for publication."

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-birth-of-the-new-yorker-story

That has never happened to me, but, yeah...sometimes Warne Marsh is left out. 

[ghost of miles]

51 minutes ago, medjuck said:

Me three.

Me four.  Excellent article, thanks for writing it (and thanks to the New Yorker for publishing it, online or otherwise).  I did a Night Lights show about 1964 last year that we have yet to post online; this article is a spur to me to finally get it published.  Criminally, I did not include Shorter, but this may be rectified in an upcoming program that will focus exclusively on Blue Note's output for that same year.  Previous (at this point rather ancient) Night Lights show about him (which quotes our own Mr. Kart):

The Wayne Shorter Songbook

[JSngry]

I would like to see somebody do a thoughtful survey of Wayne's compositions within Weather Report. I did a homemade mix of them all a few years ago, and it made for a really provocative extended listen. If you want to hear Wayne develop as a pure composer, that's a good place to go.

Is it still unhip to like Weather Report or has enough time passed?

[erwbol]

48 minutes ago, ghost of miles said:

Me four.

Five. I enjoyed reading it.

[ghost of miles]

6 minutes ago, JSngry said:

I would like to see somebody do a thoughtful survey of Wayne's compositions within Weather Report. I did a homemade mix of them all a few years ago, and it made for a really provocative extended listen. If you want to hear Wayne develop as a pure composer, that's a good place to go.

Is it still unhip to like Weather Report or has enough time passed?

That's an excellent idea for a show--I'd love to see the playlist you came up with.  I ended up framing the show pretty much in terms of pre-1970.  As for Weather Report, I think WR and fusion in general have been "hip" for a good 10 years now, if not longer, at least with younger jazz musicians and listeners, as well as those who were clued in in the first place and never went away. Funny how ears (and more superficial pillars of attitudes) change over time.  

[JSngry]

I just went through the records and pulled the tunes where Wayne was listed as composer, any and all of them. Probably on some cassettes in some shoebox now.

What was really striking was how "un-fusion-y" many of them are. Something like "The Elders"...when hear in the context of Mr. Gone, eh, I suppose one can be excused for not really zeroing in on the piece itself. But pulled away from that, it becomes something else altogether, at least it did for me.

The biggest thing I noticed though, was that Shorter composed in a much more specific manner than did Zawinul. Joe would bring in all these jams that he had turned into band vehicles, wayne was like....very specific, not just in terms of melodic lines, but of textures also. This carried over to his post-WR records, but god, that awful early digital sound...find some live shows on youTube or someplace, that was very interesting music, really. Some might not like the electric/electronic angle(s), but that's orchestration if you ask me, and orchestration is a whole other aspect of composition, something that not all that many "jazz composers" have explored past the realm of immediate performance demands.

[HutchFan]

52 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Is it still unhip to like Weather Report or has enough time passed?

I agree with Ghost. Enough time has passed. 

My general impressions are that the acoustic/electric thing that formerly seemed like a giant chasm doesn't amount to a hill of beans now. It's all blurred together.

BTW: This is not to say that I (or others) reflexively admire WR. Some of it grabs me and some of it doesn't.  What I am saying is the fact that they happened to be playing oddly-structured "songs" on electrified instruments doesn't rule them out of bounds or whatever. We're free to pick-and-choose just like we would with any other jazz. 

Frankly, I think you could say the same things about many of the jazz-hypenated musics in the 70s -- soul-jazz, Latin-jazz, funk-jazz, jazz-rock. The distinctions between them -- which probably had a lot to do with extra-musical, social context stuff -- tend to be less meaningful with the passage of time.

Or at least that's how I like to think about it.

[JSngry]

I'm old enough and oriented enough that time has yet to pass the first time for me!

But seriously - Wayne Shorter was a serious cat before Weather Report, he was a serious guy after Weather Report, and quiet as it was sometimes kept (by design or otherwise), he was a serious guy with Weather Report.

There really is a body of compositional work there to be examined. Just sayin'...

[ghost of miles]

10 minutes ago, JSngry said:

I'm old enough and oriented enough that time has yet to pass the first time for me!

But seriously - Wayne Shorter was a serious cat before Weather Report, he was a serious guy after Weather Report, and quiet as it was sometimes kept (by design or otherwise), he was a serious guy with Weather Report.

There really is a body of compositional work there to be examined. Just sayin'...

There have been some recent, or relatively recent, tributes to Weather Report and other fusion repertoire, done in an acoustic setting:  the first disc of Gerry Gibbs'  Weather Or Not and Rez Abbasi's Intents And Purposes come to mind.  I'm sure there are others; but the ones I mentioned seem to focus more on Joe Z and Jaco's compositions, which might help underscore the notion that Wayne's Weather Report output is not given the attention it deserves.

[JSngry]

Ok, here they all are. As the Vee-Jays are a necessary scholarly prelude for the Blue Notes (if you wanna do that type of thing), so are Super Nova & Moto Grosso Feio for the early Weather Report pieces (group, really). The line between composition/improvisation/explicit/implied are very blurred. That evolves. The thing is, is always sounds like Wayne, the compositions do, it's still the same language and vocabulary, just evolving like hell. This guy did not stop being Wayne Shorter, nor did what that meant recede in its uniqueness.

Weather Report

Milky Way (Shorter/Zawinul)

Umbrellas (Vitous/Shorter/Zawinul)

Tears

Eurydice

I Sing the Body Electric

The Moors

Surucucu (also heard on Live In Tokyo)

Live In Tokyo

Surucucu/Lost

Eurydice/The Moors

Tears/Umbrellas

Sweetnighter

Manolete

Non-Stop Home

Mysterious Traveler

Mysterious Traveler (skeptics can imagine THIS on a Blakey record, it'll work)

Blackthorn Rose

Scarlet Woman (Johnson/Shorter/Zawinul)

Tale Spinnin'

Lusitanos

Freezing Fire

Black Market

Elegant People (seriously, this should be a standard by now, but not song-form-y enough. I guess. Too bad. But AH! COMPOSITION!)

Three Clowns (gorgeous)

Heavy Weather

Harlequin

Palladium (another one that could be simplified/retrofitted to a Blakey groove, but...why? This sounds like the title, perfect fit)

Mr. Gone

The Elders (I love this one, so much...Wayne, all parts equal, composition/orchestration, not a "jam tune" in the least))

Pinocchio (stunt jazz!)

8:30

Brown Street (Zawinul/Shorter)

Sightseeing (deal with this, fake book!)

Night Passage

Port Of Entry

Weather Report

When It Was Now (couldn't be anybody but Wayne, and nobody's going to cover stuff like this because it's not something to cover, it's a statement of itself by itself and it stands on its own as what it is, which is...enough)

Dara Factor Two (credited to the entire group)

Procession

Plaza Real

The Well (Shorter/Zawinul)

Domino Theory

Predator (those harmonies! until not!)

Swamp Cabbage

Sportin' Life

Pearl On The Half-Shell

Face On the Barroom Floor (sweeeeet)

This Is This

0 compositions!

Some better than others, of course, but there's some real meat there. Just don't go looking for fake book type jam tunes, because that is so not what is being done here. This is, mostly, Wayne Shorter, composer broadening his palate. And after this, it continued to broaden, and as I'm hoping to hear on Emanon (if it ever comes out?!?!?!) coninues to broaden.

 

 

 

 

[Joe]

Also interesting to note: GM III's SOME OTHER STUFF was recorded in July of 1964, 3 months after NIGHT DREAMER and a month before JUJU.

 

[JSngry]

If I was going to do a linear historical presentation about Wayne's development as composer, I would start with the Miles versions of the tunes from Water Babies, then the same tunes as played by Wayne on Super Nova, then the first Weather Report things that are essentially group improvisations on themes tht were only maybe fixed or written down in full, some sound like general outlines/ideas or kernels or maybe just a mood with or without a few general touch points along the way, and then watch the move back to more concrete allocation of parts. I'd also call /out the evolution from floating long-tone melodies (and maybe pull in Odyssey Of Iska as an example of how that was already going on with Wayne) to more rhythmically tight grooves and melodies. I'd also note that "improvisation" becomes very much "interpretation", not so much always creating new melodies as interpreting specific, composed ones. Except when otherwise!

There's a journey in this music. Knowing what was going on in Wayne's life offstage is useful when looking at the career choices he made (including letting Zawinul become the main composer and "face" of Weather Report). But that's all the more reason, I think, to look at Wayne's work on it's own. "Weather Report" is one lens, "Wayne Shorter" quite another.

[AllenLowe]

1) always admired Shorter, though his own recordings never held my interest much. I suppose it's just a case of having a different musical outlook. Glad that Jim is here to really, and brilliantly coherently, explain the arc of Shorter's development. 

2) it was hearing Shorter with Miles (in person in '69 and then of course on all the recordings) that opened my ears to Shorter's greatness as an improviser. As a composer, as I sorta mentioned above, he was, for me, to be admired but rarely listened to. But his work with Miles is other-worldly, to say the least.

3) glad that Ethan came here in person to advocate for himself. He is his most articulate defender. 

4) best line of the day from Jim: "this whole "general audience" thing is the last step before total state-sanctioned patronage." Shades of Walter Benjamin; kudos to Jim.

Edited August 29, 2018 by AllenLowe

[JSngry]

I know Joe Benjamin better than Walter Benjamin, but thanks!

[AllenLowe]

Walter Benjamin had a brilliant discussion on the concept of audience - his basic contention was that it was foolish to always talk about 'audience' as though it was a finite, tangible, definable thing; in truth, he said, there are so many different kinds of audiences that any attempt to pigeonhole the reality of such was a hopeless task. 

[JSngry]

Ah, yeah. That does sound right to me.

 

[AllenLowe]

his point, too, was that all such claims - that you have to play for THE AUDIENCE - were coercive, a way to ensure conformity. Which is closer, I think, to your point.

[JSngry]

Yeah, I just see so much begging going on in jazz these days... not hustling, just outright begging. After begging becomes institutionalized, the only remaining options are either death or submission. Inevitably it's going to end up depending on a level of sponsorship/patronage that is the opposite of "self-reliance music". When that happens (hell, really, it's already happened for the most part), that's what you get, coercion to conform lest you don't get that money. I think this is especially true with legacy musics once they become actual properties totally detached from their organic origins. Ownership cracks the whip, creates a narrative, and there you go - history as badge/product, reality dumbed down to cachet.

As they say, it is what it is. But let's call it what it is.

[jazztrain]

Slightly off topic, perhaps, but I thought I'd recommend two discs that focus on Shorter compositions:

 

[ctuck1]

On 8/27/2018 at 7:25 PM, JSngry said:

oh god, here I/we go again...broken recod, same song, different verse...

Super glad that Wayne is getting bigger and better props as time goes on, and I'll reluctantly cede that the cheesy title of this article is "right for the times", but I really do not understand why an article about "The World's Greatest Living Jazz Composer"( and do you love that arc? World's to greatest ULTIMATE! and then work downwards, living, to jazz, to, finally composer, from the peak to the valley, such a tribute!) anyway, I do not get why this is the premise of such an article, nor why it is pursued with such vigor.

His first three records as a leader for Blue Note display especially thrilling powers of transmutation. Shorter’s done a lot since, but, on the occasion of his birthday, many fans—and especially many musicians—will be reaching for “Night Dreamer,” “Juju,” and “Speak No Evil” to celebrate and give thanks...Pressure creates diamonds. In the liner notes to “Night Dreamer,” Shorter says to Nat Hentoff, “I knew that for my first album for Blue Note, I had to create something substantial!” “Night Dreamer” was tracked on April 29th, “Juju” on August 3rd, and “Speak No Evil” on December 24th. It’s intensely personal art, music that could only have been created by Shorter. But one could also say that “Night Dreamer” is in the style of a Blakey album, “Juju” is a Coltrane album, and “Speak No Evil” is a Davis album. These explicit references help explain why this trilogy is so beloved among musicians, who revel in how Shorter puts his own imprint on these major influences....

Yes, they're great albums, and yes those compositions are "beloved" (I found a Hallmark card that said "Dear Wayne, Speak no more juju, just keep dreaming those night dreams, love, a jazz musician", but what's this with seeing them as Blakey/Coltrane/Miles albums. I really had never thought of them like that before, nor does it really occur to me to do so now. It's kinda creepy?

There are so many great Wayne compositions, so much evolution, so much ever-broadening vision, and all this guy can do is pimp three Blue Note records? Shit, I wore those records out back in the day, but I can't remember the last time I've "reached for" them. If anything, I'll go for Super Nova or "Elegant People" or "Beauty and the Beast" or those post-WR Columbia albums that everybody hates except a few musicians, or hell, Adam's Apple, the list goes on, from Vee-Jay to To-Day!

You're paying tribute in a general audience forum to 50+ years of supremely unique artistry and narrowing it down to 3 Blue Note records. I think this cat can do better than that, and I know Wayne deserves better. The guy evolved from a "tune" writer into a real composer but who's ready to go there in the name of "jazz" in They New Yorker? Or too much of anywhere, really.

You know, just fuck people, fuck people in general.

 

 

 

Hilarious.