In honor of Mr. Shorter’s passing, here’s your standout Wayne Shorter sax solo on a classic Weather Report song of the day, “A Remark You Made” from 1977’s Heavy Weather album. Mr. Shorter plays a simply gorgeous solo on this tune, complementing Josef Zawinul’s beautiful melody and Jaco Pastorius’ emotive bass lines. It’s a lovely ballad that Mr. Shorter elevates to new levels, a highlight of an album full of highlights.
Wayne Shorter first made his mark as a member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, joining in 1959 and staying for four years. The Jazz Messengers were at the forefront of the hard bop movement, and Shorter quickly became the group’s musical director and primary composer. (“Sincerely Diana” from the A Night in Tunisia album was one of his earliest and best contributions.)
Shorter left the Jazz Messengers in 1964 and joined up with Miles Davis’ Second Great Quintet, along with Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Tony Williams on drums—plus Miles on trumpet, of course. This innovative group blended elements of free jazz with a heavily rhythmic approach that some called “time, no changes.” It’s hard to imagine a more remarkable group of musicians all interacting and reacting in real time, and Shorter was instrumental at driving this exciting new sound—and writing many great tunes, such as “Footprints” from the Miles Smiles album.
There was also a lot of solo work and sideman jobs in there, including a run of influential albums on the Blue Note label. I was and am a big fan of 1964’s Speak No Evil album, which blended elements of hard bop and modal music and featured Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums.
Then came Weather Report, evolving from Miles’ foray into electrified jazz fusion. Shorter and Joe Zawinul had both played on Miles’ seminal In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew albums and moved from there to form their own group to explore the new fusion music. Featuring a rotating cadre of rhythm section players, Weather Report quickly became one of the leading proponents of jazz fusion, driving the music into ever evolving directions through a series of ever more impressive albums, including Weather Report (1971), I Sing the Body Electric (1972), Sweetnighter (1973), Mysterious Traveller (1974), Tale Spinnin’ (1975), and Black Market (1976).
Heavy Weather, released in 1977, was the album that exploded Weather Report into superstardom. It’s hard to imagine today how wildly popular the group was back then, a bunch of jazzers approaching rock star status. Enticed in no small part by the breakthrough track “Birdland,” young people around the world shelled out $5.99 for the album and lined up to buy tickets for their arena shows. It was unlike anything the jazz world had experienced in years, and it had a lot to do with the remarkable chemistry between co-leaders Shorter and Zawinul—ably aided and abetted by the virtuoso playing (from Black Market on) of bassist extraordinaire Jaco Pastorius. Black Market hit #42 on the Billboard 200 album chart and #2 on the Top Jazz Albums chart but Heavy Weather did even better, hitting #30 on the Billboard 200 and #1 on the jazz chart.
During my freshman year in college I had both Black Market and Heavy Weather on heavy rotation on my hi-fi system, and several of the groups I played in always found a way to sneak in a little Weather Report amongst whatever else we were playing. (Yeah, we did “Black Market” at a few wedding receptions, believe it or not.) I even transcribed “Birdland” for my freshman jazz ear training class and morphed that into a BS&T-like arrangement for a small jazz combo I played in. Wild stuff.
Back to Wayne Shorter, who also had a large presence outside of Weather Report. He played the famous sax solo (alongside Steve Gadd’s equally famous drum solo) on Steely Dan’s “Aja.” He played the soprano sax solo on Don Henley’s “End of the Innocence.” He played on the Rolling Stones’ Bridges to Babylon album and on a number of Joni Mitchell albums, including Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter and Mingus.
That’s just a short list of Wayne Shorter’s monumental contributions to the worlds of jazz and popular music. The man was truly a giant, the likes of which we’ll likely not see again. Wayne Shorter passed away on March 2, 2023. He was 89 years old, but his music is truly timeless.
