VICTOR BAILEY

VICTOR BAILEY

electric bass

A true champion of the electric bass guitar, Victor Bailey has distinguished himself as one of the greats on that instrument in the service of Weather Report, Weather Update, Steps Ahead, The Zawinul Syndicate and Madonna. As a leader he brings his impressive facility and undeniable groovepower to bear in the service of his own songs. An accomplished composer with an inherent musicality that goes well beyond the bass, Bailey strikes a nice balance between virtuosic chops and solid tunesmithing on Lowblow, his second recording as a leader and his debut on ESC Records.

Although it has been ten years between albums (his Bottom's Up on Atlantic came out 1990), the timing of Bailey's Lowblow is right on the money. "In the last 20 years, by the time that my generation of guys was mature enough to become artists, everything became so different," he says. "Straight ahead became the sound of 30 or 40 years ago. And electric music became smooth jazz. I think a lot of us reached a point where we got fed up. I hadn't made a record in ten years because every label wanted the radio thing. It took me that long time to run into a label guy (ESC Record's Joachim Becker) who would let me just play my bass and record the music I wanted to record."

In tandem with a pair of unparalleled drummers in Omar Hakim and Dennis Chambers, Bailey grooves with authority on tunes like "Sweet Tooth", "Knee-Jerk Reaction" and the exceedingly funky Larry Graham tribute "Graham Cracker". Special guests Bill Evans and Kenny Garrett contribute their own virtuosity on soprano sax while stellar support is also given by Wayne Krantz on guitar, Jim Beard, Michael Bearden and Henry Hey on keyboards.

The burning samba flavored "Brain Teaser" is a stunning showcase of Victor's single note prowess while the lovely, melancholy ballad "She Left Me" features some of his most lyrical playing on the record. He affects a warm, rounded upright bass tone on the piano trio ballad "Babytalk", which features Jim Beard on the Wurlitzer piano and Dennis Chambers flaunting some supple brushwork. The title track highlights Victor's vocal scatting in union with his tight, staccato basslines and "Feels Like a Hug" is a melodic vehicle underscored by cleanly picked arpeggios and synth bass while also featuring some two handed tapping excursions on Victor's solo.
Easily the most inspired track on Lowblow is Bailey's vocal treatment of the Jaco Pastorious signature piece "Continuum". Having memorized the song and the solo note for note when he was still a teenager, Victor would later put heartfelt words to the tune in memory of the late, great bassist who was such a towering influence on so many players.

"I wrote those lyrics about a week after Jaco died," says Victor. "I can't even say that I wrote it... it just came through me. I wrote the lyrics exactly as they are in about ten minutes. I didn't change a word from that first writing. They just kind of flowed out and it just happened. Of course, I knew the whole thing intimately because I spent half of my childhood practicing it. Every day after school I had my routine of things that I would do. And one was to play 'Continuum'. I mean, I layed that song every day. To this day I can put that record on every day and listen to it. So I really knew the solo well and it seemed like the words already there. It was one truly inspired moment. It just happened and I'm very proud of it."

A native Philadelphian and current resident of Los Angeles, Bailey is a link in that long lineage of Philly bass that has produced such extraordinary players as Jymie Merritt, Tyrone Browne, Alphonso Johnson, Stanley Clarke, Jaco Pastorious, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Charles Fambrough, Gerald Veasley and Christian McBride. And yet, he maintains that his mission on Lowblow went beyond that deep bass tradition.

"The main thing that I'm trying to show as a recording artist is that I'm not a bass player," he maintains. "I don't play the bass, I play music. It just so happens that the instrument that I specialize in is the bass. In this post-Jaco and Stanley Clarke era, there've been a lot of records with a lot of phenomenal bass playing on them but not as much phenomenal bass music... things like Jaco's 'Teen Town' and 'Baha Mama' or Stanley's 'Schoold Days', which hold up as great pieces of music in spite of the fact that they were done on the bass. And on this recording I really wanted to show the music that I have inside of me and show that I'm more than a bass player but also a writer, arranger and composer."

Growing up in a musical household (his father Morris Bailey was a respected saxophonist and writer-arranger for many of the acts on Philadelphia Sound Records), Victor was exposed at an early age to a constant flow of great Philly musicians. "I can't say that I really had any mentors, per se, but I'd come home from school and my father would be there rehearsing with guys like Tyrone Browne. So naturally hearing somebody like that when you're 16 and you'd been playing for only a year... it was inspiring to me. After Tyrone would leave I'd want to stay up and practice until midnight... like six hours straight. So he was a big influence on me though I wouldn't say mentor."

While still a teenager, Victor honed his chops on local gigs with the likes of organist Shirley Scott and jazz drumming great Mickey Rocker. "Philly is a great place to get your musicality together," he maintains. "The standard of playing is so high and there is so much competition. But it's a great education. If you're 16 and you think you can play and you wanna go to a jam session, you gotta get up and play with the older cats who run all of the club scene. So you have to learn how to play tunes and you have to learn how to play changes. You never step on the stage in Philly unless you really got it together."

Larry Graham was a particular bass hero of his in those formative years. "I was a Larry Graham nut before I ever played bass," says Victor. "I played drums when Graham Central Station first came out. I went to see him at the Capitol Center in D.C. and just to sound of the bass alone... it was the first time I had ever heard anybody slapping, and just the sound of the bass was in my head for weeks. I knew he was hitting the bass in some kind of way but my seat was so far back, I really couldn't see what he was doing. But the tone of the bass being slapped and humped was just so phenomenal to me."

"And like most guys of my age who are known as jazz guys, I grew up playing in a funk band, covering tunes by Larry Graham, Kool & The Gang, Earth, Wind & Fire, Bootsy Collins. I kind of always played it in a real jazzy style and over time it sort of just became what it became."

After a stint at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Bailey migrated to the New York scene. It was on his first recording date in town, guitarist Bobby Brown'sClean Sweep (GRP), that he met drummer Omar Hakim. They also did two gigs with singer Miriam Makeba before joining Weather Report in 1982.

"As far as chemistry, it was immediate," says Victor. "It's that thing that every drummer and bass player dream of. You have certain guys that you just hook up with, and with Omar I never have to think about where the time is, where the groove is, where the feel is. We just play and it's like instant communication. I think we have a good combination of the virtuosity and the education and the heart and the soul and the groove and all that, in equal proportions to each other. I think our styles fit each other because we're both funky but we're not really funk guys, and we're jazz but we're not really jazzy guys. When we get called for something and we know that the other guy is on the gig, we instantly know that it's going to be happening, it's going to be grooving and there's going to be a lot of energy. If it's an improvising situation it's going to be a lot of fun improvising. It it's a groove thing like Madonna was, it's going to be a GROOVE thing... capital letters, please."

The Madonna gig came after her 1982 appearance on "Saturday Night Live". As Victor explains, "They were just putting a rhythm section together for her appearance on the show and she knew who we were and asked the musical director to see if he could get us. So we did that show and she really enjoyed it and she said at the time 'Whenever I do a tour, I'm gonna use you guys.' And we were surprised at how hip she was. I mean, like, at the end of a songs at rehearsal we'd play certain things and she'd turn around and say 'Don't play that Weather Report shit at the end of any tune'. And we both said to her, 'You know about that?' And she sure did."

Considering his deep-seated love of groove, Bailey was fulfilled in the pop setting of Madonna's music as he was in the jazzier realms of Joe Zawinul's world beat fusion music. "That is something that I've always been fighting, that notion that I'm a jazz guy," he says. "Fortunately, I've been able to transcend some of the boundaries. I mean, I'm just as happy laying it down with Madonna, and in her band I'm playing with the same heart and the same passion that I play with Joe."

While he remains the bass anchor in the Zawinul Syndicate, Victor also eargely awaits the opportunity to spread the bass gospel on tour with his own band."There's a whole new generation of kids out here who have never seen Jaco or Stanley Clarke. That's like my slot now, that's my audience right there. There's a whole new audience that I can turn on to that genre, that thing. It's like I'm carrying the torch. For real. I'm at the age where I'm one of the torchbearers."

Victor carries the torch in fine fashion on Lowblow

(Bill Milkowski)

SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY

Solo Album

Bottom's Up - Atlantic

With Weather Report

Procession - CBS

Domino Theory - CBS

Sportin' Life - CBS

This is This - CBS

With Steps Ahead

Magnetic - Electra Musician

NYC - NYC Records

With Bill Evans

Escape - ESC Records

Touch - ESC Records

With Joe Zawinul & The Zawinul Syndicate

World Tour - ESC Records

With Michael Brecker

Now You See It, Now You Don't - GRP

With Lenny White

Present Tense - Hip Bop Records

Source: http://www.europejazz.net/mus/bailey.htm

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OMAR HAKIM

Omar Hakim (born February 12, 1959 in New York City - USA) is a famous drummer noted in jazz, jazz fusion and pop music. He currently endorses Pearl drums.

Among the notable artists he has played with are Anita Baker, Sting, Weather Report, Mariah Carey, Madonna, David Bowie, Miles Davis, Everything but the Girl, Marcus Miller, Dire Straits, Kazumi Watanabe and many others.

Hakim credits jazz vibraphonist Mike Mainieri with giving him his first break in 1980 - Hakim appeared in a video with Mainieri called The Jazz Life and began working with singer Carly Simon through Mainieri. Hakim first came to major attention as a member of Weather Report and then Sting's Blue Turtles band, appearing in the film Bring On the Night.

Between 1988 and 1989 he appeared regularly as the house band drummer in The Sunday Night Band during the first half season of the acclaimed music performance program Sunday Night on NBC late-night television. [1] After being temporarily replaced by drummer J. T. Lewis for the remainder of that season, Hakim re-appeared in the band for the second season in the Fall of 1989, when the program returned under the new name Night Music.

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Omar Hakim...

The legendary Omar Hakim takes advantage of every hot, new percussion option out there, from acoustic drums, to Roland’s electronic V-Drums—which he MIDIs into his Power Mac—when he plays drums for and produces the greats of pop and jazz fusion.

A well-recognized percussionist and producer in these two distinct worlds of music, Hakim may be the only person who can say he’s played drums for David Bowie, Madonna, Sting and Miles Davis.

"I had a natural affinity for drums and rhythm very young," says Hakim. "I started playing drums at about age five, when I got a toy drum as a Christmas gift from an uncle. They strapped that thing around my neck and I immediately started playing one of those marching cadence kind of beats."

By the time he turned ten, Hakim was playing in his father’s band. At age 15, he did his first tour.

Music in the Tree Granted, music flowed through the genes of the Hakim family. His father, Hasan Hakim, played trombone for Duke Ellington and Count Basie. This heavy jazz influence helped to warm the younger Hakim’s ear up for a part he would later play in one of the most famous jazz fusion acts ever, Weather Report.

"My career really took off in 1980," recalls Hakim. "I met a guy named Mike Mainieri, an award-winning jazz vibraphonist, who also produced Carly Simon. Carly needed a drummer, so he hired me to play in her band."

"When you get out there and people see you play, the word of mouth starts spreading pretty quickly," he adds.

Electronics Shake the Drum World But in the 80s, the world changed for drummers. Roger Linn built the first commercially available drum machine, giving any non-percussionist with a few bucks the ability to easily create drum loops using samples of real drums.

"This changed drummers’ lives all over," explains Hakim. "But instead of feeling defeated by the whole trend, I decided to go my local music store, purchase a drum machine and learn how to use it." Like his first drum, Hakim learned to master the Linn Drum Machine very quickly.

Suddenly, he found he could market himself around New York City as both a drummer and a programmer. From that point on, he got into electronic music.

"I’ve pretty much followed the changes with electronic drumming from the 80s up until now," he says. "You’ve gotta stay on top of these technological changes. It’s very important if you’re a professional musician."

When Hakim’s friend Nile Rodgers started producing tracks for David Bowie, Rodgers referred Hakim to play drums on Bowie’s "Let’s Dance" album.

Around the same time, Miles Davis introduced him to the band Weather Report. "I was the last drummer in that band, but that band turned my career around," says Hakim. "Sting and Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler were fans of Weather Report and they saw me playing with the group."

Then in 1983, while he was on tour with Weather Report, Bowie’s "Let’s Dance" album came out, and suddenly Hakim found himself recognized as a key player in both the worlds of jazz and pop music.

Striving Against Typecasting "Sometimes, if people know you from rock, they think of you as a rock drummer and don’t expect you to play anything else. Or, if they know you in jazz, then they typecast you as a jazz drummer," explains Hakim. "I was conscious of the fact that I didn’t want people to know me as a rock drummer or a jazz drummer, but as a total musician. So I always made sure I let people know that I was about music."

"I knew that setting up my career in his way was going to make my life very interesting and would keep me open-minded musically," explains Hakim. "It was always very important to me that I expose myself to everything so that I could grow as a musician."
Source: apple.com
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Small Profile

Omar Hakim is a fusion drummer and session man extraordinaire whose talents have graced a tremendous variety of big name recordings in the jazz, pop, and R&B fields dating back to the early '80s. Born in New York City in 1959, Hakim began playing drums at age five, and by age ten was performing with his father, swing trombonist Hasan Hakim (Duke Ellington, Count Basie); he also performed with boyhood friend and future fusion star Marcus Miller. Hakim landed his first big break in 1980 when he joined Carly Simon's backing band; soon after, he became the drummer for Weather Report in time for 1982's Record, and he also landed a gig playing on David Bowie's return to the American pop charts, Let's Dance. He remained with Weather Report until the group's breakup in 1985, and his high-profile engagements helped land him work on Sting's The Dream of the Blue Turtles and Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms, among others. By this time, Hakim was teaching himself to program drum machines, which put him in even greater demand as a pop, rock, and R&B session musician, and landed him work with Madonna. Meanwhile, he continued his work as a jazz fusion drummer; just a partial list of his credits over the '80s and '90s includes work with Miles Davis, David Sanborn, Roy Ayers, George Benson, Joe Sample, John Scofield, Lee Ritenour, and Najee. In 1989, Hakim released his first solo album, Rhythm Deep, which occupied a middle ground between jazz, R&B, and pop, and gave him a chance to showcase his vocal abilities as well. The results earned Hakim a Grammy nomination. During the '90s, Hakim continued to improve his skills in the realm of electronic percussion, keeping abreast of new technologies and thereby keeping his session career in good stead. He performed on albums by Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, and Jewel, among other big time pop stars, and initially kept his jazz work going as well, though it had tapered off by the middle of the decade. In 2000, Hakim released his second solo album, The Groovesmith, which took a musical approach similar to his first effort and was produced on his own Macintosh ProTools system. 

Source: Steve Huey, All Music Guide

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Interview 
courtesy of Mike Dolbear.com 

Omar Hakim Live Chat transcript 
During our recent visit to NAMM 2004 we held a live chat with the great Omar Hakim. Here's some selected questions from the transcript.

Question: I was wondering when you're www.omarhakim.com may start to run 
OMAR HAKIM: There’s a lot of people asking me that - I'm talking to a few designers now and I will choose one soon to do the work
Question: Great, are you primarily using V Drums now
OMAR HAKIM: No I'm still playing Pearl Drums as well. Depending on the artist, and or recording session
Question: I'm looking to add a digital pad to my existing analogue kit and wondered if you recommended any?
OMAR HAKIM: I never consider the V drums a replacement for Acoustic drums, they are something I add to my "tool kit" I'm a big fan of Roland's V drum pads with the nylon mesh drum heads.
Question: I heard that you did a tour with Take 6 and Marcus Miller last year
OMAR HAKIM: Yes I did do that tour. It was the first time Marcus and I played together in about 10 years. The shows were fantastic.
Question: I've got your two instructional videos and I would like to say what an inspiration they are to me
OMAR HAKIM: Thank you very much Tim. We're planning to re-release them on DVD soon. I'm going to be gathering some additional material just for the DVD release.
Question: To a young musician, what advice would you give to become the best that you can be?
OMAR HAKIM: Practice as much as you can, listen to many different styles of music because that will help you keep your mind open. Also visualise and focus on your goals in the music industry, then do something everyday toward that goal
Question: Who are your musical heroes
OMAR HAKIM: There are many! Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Buddy Rich, Elvin Jones, Lenny White, Billy Cobham, Earth Wind And Fire, John Coltraine to name but a few.... 
Question: I know it's hard to answer, but how do you groove?
OMAR HAKIM: You are very right - it IS hard to answer that! But I had a teacher who once said "some things can't be taught, they must be caught" What that meant for me is sometimes listening to my favourite drummers and musicians and emulating the things I hear puts me in the direction of understanding different approaches to grooving.
Question: I also wonder what should I practice each day
OMAR HAKIM: What I used to do is practice to my favourite recordings. In developing your own style it's good to study and try to emulate other drummers' styles. The interesting thing about that is you always end up playing your own version of what you hear. and inside of that you will find the seed for your own style.
Question: What are some of the most memorable performances and recordings you’ve done
OMAR HAKIM: The performances: weather Report at the Hammersmith Odeon 1983 Those shows were the basis for the second album I did with weather Report called Domino Theory. Next would be Sting at Radio City Music hall 1985 and lastly.......... ....my first gig ever with my Fathers band "the Nomads" when I was 10 years old.

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Omar Hakim... The legendary Omar Hakim takes advantage of every hot, new percussion option out there, from acoustic drums, to Roland’s electronic V-Drums—which he MIDIs into his Power Mac—when he plays drums for and produces the greats of pop and jazz fusion. A well-recognized percussionist and producer in these two distinct worlds of music, Hakim may be the only person who can say he’s played drums for David Bowie, Madonna, Sting and Miles Davis. "I had a natural affinity for drums and rhythm very young," says Hakim. "I started playing drums at about age five, when I got a toy drum as a Christmas gift from an uncle. They strapped that thing around my neck and I immediately started playing one of those marching cadence kind of beats." By the time he turned ten, Hakim was playing in his father’s band. At age 15, he did his first tour. Music in the Tree Granted, music flowed through the genes of the Hakim family. His father, Hasan Hakim, played trombone for Duke Ellington and Count Basie. This heavy jazz influence helped to warm the younger Hakim’s ear up for a part he would later play in one of the most famous jazz fusion acts ever, Weather Report. "My career really took off in 1980," recalls Hakim. "I met a guy named Mike Mainieri, an award-winning jazz vibraphonist, who also produced Carly Simon. Carly needed a drummer, so he hired me to play in her band." "When you get out there and people see you play, the word of mouth starts spreading pretty quickly," he adds. Electronics Shake the Drum World But in the 80s, the world changed for drummers. Roger Linn built the first commercially available drum machine, giving any non-percussionist with a few bucks the ability to easily create drum loops using samples of real drums. "This changed drummers’ lives all over," explains Hakim. "But instead of feeling defeated by the whole trend, I decided to go my local music store, purchase a drum machine and learn how to use it." Like his first drum, Hakim learned to master the Linn Drum Machine very quickly. Suddenly, he found he could market himself around New York City as both a drummer and a programmer. From that point on, he got into electronic music. "I’ve pretty much followed the changes with electronic drumming from the 80s up until now," he says. "You’ve gotta stay on top of these technological changes. It’s very important if you’re a professional musician." When Hakim’s friend Nile Rodgers started producing tracks for David Bowie, Rodgers referred Hakim to play drums on Bowie’s "Let’s Dance" album. Around the same time, Miles Davis introduced him to the band Weather Report. "I was the last drummer in that band, but that band turned my career around," says Hakim. "Sting and Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler were fans of Weather Report and they saw me playing with the group." Then in 1983, while he was on tour with Weather Report, Bowie’s "Let’s Dance" album came out, and suddenly Hakim found himself recognized as a key player in both the worlds of jazz and pop music. Striving Against Typecasting "Sometimes, if people know you from rock, they think of you as a rock drummer and don’t expect you to play anything else. Or, if they know you in jazz, then they typecast you as a jazz drummer," explains Hakim. "I was conscious of the fact that I didn’t want people to know me as a rock drummer or a jazz drummer, but as a total musician. So I always made sure I let people know that I was about music." "I knew that setting up my career in his way was going to make my life very interesting and would keep me open-minded musically," explains Hakim. "It was always very important to me that I expose myself to everything so that I could grow as a musician."

Source: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=321554659 Readmore...

ALEX ACUNA

Alejandro Neciosup Acuña aka Alex Acuña (born December 12, 1944) is a Peruvian Afro-Cuban jazz drummer and percussionist.

Born in Pativilca, Peru, Acuña played in local bands from the age of ten, and moved to Lima as a teenager. At the age of eighteen he joined the band of Perez Prado, and in 1967 he moved to Puerto Rico. In 1974 Acuña moved to Las Vegas, working with artists such as Elvis Presley and Diana Ross, and the following year he joined the jazz-fusion group Weather Report, appearing on the albums Black Market and Heavy Weather. Acuña left Weather Report in 1978, and became a session musician in California, recording and playing live with (amongst many others) Paul McCartney, Joni Mitchell, Ella Fitzgerald, Jim Walker (musician), Chick Corea, Whitney Houston, Plácido Domingo, Phil Keaggy, Sergeant Petter, Sam Phillips, former Weather Report bandmates Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul, Herbie Hancock, Carlos Santana, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Beck, Roberta Flack, U2, and Al Jarreau. He can be found on recordings by musicians as culturally diverse as Lee Ritenour, Peter Gabriel, Johnny Clegg, Robbie Robertson & Jackson Browne.

In the 1980s Acuna also recorded and toured with the Christian jazz band Koinonia, which featured session musicians Abraham Laboriel, Justo Almario, Hadley Hockensmith, Harland Rogers, and Bill Maxwell. He played on Willy DeVille's Crow Jane Alley album.

He has also worked as an educator at University of California, Los Angeles and Berklee College of Music.

Discography

(1976) Black Market - Weather Report
(1977) Heavy Weather - Weather Report
(1992) Thinking of You - Alex Acuña and the Unknowns
(2000) Acuarela de Tambores - Alex Acuña
(2002) Los Hijos del Sol: To My Country - Alex Acuña

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Alex Acuña was born on December 12, 1944 in Pativilca, Peru - a small coastal village 100 miles north of the capital city of Lima, Peru. His real name is Alexjandro Neciosup Acuña. A self-educated musician, he was inspired by his father and brothers (all of whom were musicians). By the time Alex turned ten, he was already playing in local bands. As a teenager, he was one of Peru's most accomplished session drummers, performing on many recording projects for artists as well as film and television productions. Alex also earned a glowing reputation for his skills as a live performer.

At the age of eighteen, Alex was chosen by the great Latin bandleader, Perez Prado, to join his big band. It was with the Prado band that Alex first traveled to the United States. Several years later, he began studying at the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music, playing as classical percussionist with the Symphony Orchestra for the Pablo Casals Summer Festivals in San Juan, P.R. In 1974, Alex moved to Las Vegas and there, played with such greats as Elvis Presley and Diana Ross. Following this chapter of his career, Alex became both drummer and percussionist for one of the most innovative jazz groups of our time, Weather Report, recording “Black Market” and the famous “Heavy Weather” album.

After moving to Los Angeles in 1978, Alex quickly earned the position of a valued session drummer and percussionist for recordings, television and motion pictures. He became the recipient of many awards and honors, including the Emeritus MVP award from the L.A. chapter of National Academy of Recording for the Arts and Sciences and winner of the “Latin/Brazilian percussionist” Category of Modern Drummer's “Reader's Poll” for five years running.

His countless album credits and live performances are comprised of such diverse artists as U2, Paul McCartney, Joni Mitchell, Al Jarreau, Ella Fitzgerald, Roberta Flack, Andre Crouch, The Winans, Tracy Chapman, Sheryl Crow, Whitney Houston, Bruce Willis, Seal, Yellow Jackets, The Brecker Brothers, Chick Corea, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Carlos Santana, The Gipsy Kings, Julio Iglesias, Herbie Hancock, Koinonia, Juan Gabriel, Luis Miguel, Placido Domingo, Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul, and Integrity Music Productions internationally with artists such as Ron Kenoly and others.

Alex has recorded film scores under the direction of Dave Grusin, Alan Silvestry, Michele Legrand, Bill Conti, Michele Colombier, Marvin Hamlish, Maurice Jaree, Mark Isham, Hans Zimmer, John Williams and many more!

In 2007 he was the percussionist on the last Joe Zawinul record “Brown Street.”

Source: All About Jazz

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WAYNE SHORTER

Wayne Shorter, born August 25, 1933 is an American jazz composer and saxophonist, commonly regarded as one of the most important American jazz saxophonists and composers since the 1960s.

Shorter has recorded dozens of albums as a leader, and appeared on dozens more with others including Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in the late 1950s, Miles Davis second great quintet in the 1960s and the jazz-rock fusion band Weather Report, which Shorter co-led in the 1970s. Many of his compositions have become standards.

Early life and career

Shorter was born in Newark, New Jersey, and attended Newark Arts High School.[1] He loved music, being encouraged by his father to take up the saxophone as a teenager (his brother Alan became a trumpeter). After graduating from New York University in 1956 Shorter spent two years in the U.S. Army, during which time he played briefly with Horace Silver. After his discharge from the army he played with Maynard Ferguson. It was in his youth that Shorter was given the nickname Mr.Gone, which would later become an album title for Weather Report.

In 1959 Shorter joined Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. He stayed with Blakey for five years, and eventually became musical director for the group.

With Miles Davis (1964-70)

When John Coltrane finally left Miles Davis' band in 1960 to pursue his own group(after previously trying to leave in 1959), Coltrane proposed Wayne Shorter as a replacement but Shorter was unavailable and Davis went with Sonny Stitt on tenor followed by a revolving door of Hank Mobley, George Coleman, and Sam Rivers. In 1964, Miles Davis persuaded Shorter to leave Blakey and join his quintet alongside Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams. Miles' quintet with Shorter is considered by many to have been Davis's strongest working group. Shorter composed extensively for Davis ("Prince of Darkness", "ESP", "Footprints", "Sanctuary", "Nefertiti", and many others; on some albums he provided half of the compositions), typically hard-bop workouts with spaced-out long melody lines above the beat.

Herbie Hancock had this to say of Shorter's tenure in the group: "The master writer to me, in that group, was Wayne Shorter. He still is a master. Wayne was one of the few people who brought music to Miles that didn't get changed." Davis said: "Wayne is a real composer. He writes scores, write the parts for everybody just as he wants them to sound. He also brought in a kind of curiosity about working with musical rules. If they didn't work, then he broke them, but with musical sense; he understood that freedom in music was the ability to know the rules in order to bend them to your own satisfaction and taste."

Shorter remained in Davis's band after the breakup of the quintet in 1968, playing on early jazz fusion recordings including In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew (both 1969). His last live dates and studio recordings with Davis were in 1970.

Until 1968 he played tenor saxophone exclusively. The final album on which he played tenor in the regular sequence of Davis albums was Filles de Kilimanjaro. In 1969 he played the soprano saxophone on the Davis album In a Silent Way and on his own Super Nova (recorded with then-current Davis sidemen Chick Corea and John McLaughlin). In live Davis recordings from summer 1969 to early spring 1970 he played both saxophones. By the early 1970s, however, he chiefly played soprano saxophone.

Solo Blue Note Recordings

Simultaneous with his time in the Miles Davis quintet, Shorter recorded several albums for Blue Note Records, featuring almost exclusively his own compositions, with a variety of line-ups, quartets and larger groups including Blue Note favourites such as Freddie Hubbard. His first Blue Note album (of nine in total) was Night Dreamer recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in 1964 with Lee Morgan, McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman and Elvin Jones.

JuJu and Speak No Evil are two more well known recordings from this era. Shorter's compositions on these albums are notable for their use of:
pentatonic melodies harmonised with pedal points and complex harmonic relationships;
structured solos that reflect the composition's melody as much as its harmony;
long rests as an integral part of the music, in contrast with other, more effusive, players of the time such as John Coltrane. Indeed the rhythm section on Night Dreamer included Elvin Jones and McCoy Tyner of Coltrane's classic quartet that had recorded A Love Supreme the previous year.

The later album The All-Seeing Eye was a free-jazz workout with a larger group, while Adam's Apple of 1966 was back to carefully constructed melodies by Shorter leading a quartet. Then a sextet again in the following year for Schizophrenia with his Miles Davis band mates Hancock and Carter plus trombonist Curtis Fuller, alto saxophonist/flautist James Spaulding and strong rhythms by drummer Joe Chambers. These albums have recently been remastered by Rudy Van Gelder.

Shorter also recorded occasionally as a sideman (again, mainly for Blue Note) with,Donald Byrd, McCoy Tyner, Grachan Moncur III, Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, and bandmates Hancock and Williams.

Weather Report period, 1971 to 1985

Following the release of his Odyssey Of Iska album in 1970, Shorter along with keyboardist Joe Zawinul (also a veteran of the Miles Davis group) formed the fusion group Weather Report. The other original members were bassist Miroslav Vitous, percussionist Airto Moreira, and drummer Alphonse Mouzon. After Vitous' departure in 1973 Shorter and Zawinul co-led the group until the band's break up in late 1985. A great variety of excellent musicians that would make up Weather Report alumni over the years (most notably the revolutionary bassist Jaco Pastorius) helped the band produce many high quality recordings in varying styles through the years — with funk, bebop, Latin jazz, ethnic music, and futurism being the most prevalent denominators.

Solo

Shorter also recorded critically acclaimed albums as leader, notably Native Dancer, which featured his Miles Davis band-mate Herbie Hancock and Brazilian composer and vocalist Milton Nascimento. Shorter was to work with both of these musicians again later. He also contributed to many albums by Joni Mitchell. On the title track of Steely Dan's 1978 album Aja, he played a solo the critic who wrote the album's liner notes called "suitable for framing" (meaning 'beautiful' rather than 'wooden').

Concurrently, in the late 1970s and the early 1980s he toured in the V.S.O.P. quintet. This group was a revival of the 1960s Miles Davis quintet, except that Freddie Hubbard filled the trumpet chair instead of Miles.

For further discussion of V.S.O.P. please see Herbie Hancock.

Performing on soprano and tenor saxophone, Shorter was also cast as a 1950s jazz musician in Bertrand Tavernier's 1986 film Round Midnight.

Recent career

After leaving Weather Report, Shorter continued to record and lead groups in jazz fusion styles, including touring in 1988 with guitarist Carlos Santana. He has also maintained an occasional working relationship with Herbie Hancock, including a tribute album recorded shortly after Davis's death with Hancock, Carter, Williams and Wallace Roney. He continued to appear on Joni Mitchell's records in the 1990s.

In 1995 Shorter released the album High Life, his first solo recording for seven years. It was also Shorter's debut as a leader for Verve Records. Shorter composed all the compositions on the album and co-produced it with the bassist Marcus Miller. High Life received the Grammy Award for best Contemporary Jazz Album in 1997.

Shorter would work with Hancock once again in 1997, on the much acclaimed and heralded album 1+1. The song Aung San Suu Kyi (named for the Burmese pro-democracy activist) won both Hancock and Shorter a Grammy award.

The Quartet

Shorter formed his current band in 2000, the first permanent acoustic group under his leadership, a quartet with young musicians, pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci, and drummer Brian Blade, playing his own complex compositions, many of them reworkings of tunes from his substantial portfolio going back to the 1960s. Two albums of live recordings featuring this quartet have been released (Footprints Live! (2002) and Beyond the Sound Barrier (2005)). The quartet has received great acclaim from fans and critics, especially for the strength of Shorter's tenor saxophone playing. The Shorter biography Footprints by journalist Michelle Mercer contains an insight into the working life of these musicians as well as insight into Shorter's life, thoughts and Buddhist beliefs. Beyond the Sound Barrier received the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Jazz Album.

Shorter's 2003 album Alegria (his first studio album for ten years, since High Life) received the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Jazz Album; it features the quartet with a host of other musicians, including pianist Brad Mehldau, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington and former Weather Report percussionist Alex Acuña. Shorter's compositions, some new some reworked from his Miles Davis period, feature the complex Latin rhythms that Shorter specialised in during his Weather Report days.

Personal life

Shorter's wife Ana Maria and their niece Dalila were both killed on TWA Flight 800 in 1996, and he married Carolina Dos Santos, a close friend of Ana Maria, in 1999. Shorter is a Nichiren Buddhist and a member of Soka Gakkai.

Discography

Main article: Wayne Shorter discographyTitle Year Label
Introducing Wayne Shorter 1959 Vee-Jay
Second Genesis 1960 Vee-Jay
Wayning Moments 1962 Vee-Jay
Night Dreamer 1964 Blue Note
JuJu 1964 Blue Note
Speak No Evil 1965 Blue Note
The Soothsayer 1965 Blue Note
Et Cetera 1965 Blue Note
The All Seeing Eye 1965 Blue Note
Adam's Apple 1966 Blue Note
Schizophrenia 1967 Blue Note
Super Nova 1969 Blue Note
Moto Grosso Feio 1970 Blue Note
Odyssey of Iska 1970 Blue Note
Native Dancer with Milton Nascimento 1974 Columbia
Atlantis 1985 Columbia
Phantom Navigator 1986 Columbia
Joy Ryder 1988 Columbia
High Life 1995 Verve
1 + 1 with Herbie Hancock 1997 Verve
Footprints Live! 2002 Verve
Alegría 2003 Verve
Beyond the Sound Barrier 2005 Verve

Awards

Down Beat Poll Winner New Star Saxophonist (1962)
Grammy Award for Best Jazz Fusion Performance for Weather Report's 8:30 (1979)
Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition for Dexter Gordon's Call Sheet Blues (1987)
Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Individual or Group for A Tribute to Miles (1994)
Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album for High Life (1996)
Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition for Aung San Suu Kyi (1997)
NEA Jazz Masters (1998)
Honorary Doctorate of Music (1999; Berklee College of Music)
Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Solo for In Walked Wayne (1999)
Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition for Sacajawea (2003)
Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Individual or Group for Alegría (2003)
Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Individual or Group for Beyond The Sound Barrier (2005)
Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Award Small Ensemble Group of the Year to Wayne Shorter Quartet (2006)

References

A Brief History, Newark Arts High School. Accessed August 10, 2008
The Big Takeover: Weather Report - Forecast: Tomorrow (Columbia Legacy)

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JOE ZAWINUL

Joe Zawinul belongs in a category unto himself --a European from the heartland of the classical music tradition (Vienna) who learned to swing as freely as any American jazzer, and whose appetite for growth and change remains insatiable. Zawinul's curiosity and openness to all kinds of sounds made him one of the driving forces behind the electronic jazz-rock revolution of the late '60s and '70s -- and later, he would be almost alone in exploring fusions between jazz-rock and ethnic music from all over the globe. He is one of a bare handful of synthesizer players who actually learned how to play the instrument, to make it an expressive, swinging part of his arsenal. Prior to the invention of the portable synthesizer, Zawinul's example helped bring the Wurlitzer and Fender Rhodes electric pianos into the jazz mainstream. Zawinul also has became a significant composer, ranging (like his idol Duke Ellington) from soulful hit tunes to large-scale symphonic jazz canvases. Yet despite his classical background, he now prefers to improvise compositions spontaneously onto tape, not write them out on paper. 

At six, Josef Erich Zawinul started to play the accordion in his native Austria, and studies in classical piano and composition at the Vienna Conservatory soon followed. His interest in jazz piano, initially influenced by George Shearing and Erroll Garner, led to jobs with Austrian saxophonist Hans Koller in 1952 and gigs with his own trio in France and Germany. He emigrated to the United States in late 1958 after winning a scholarship to Berklee, yet after just one week in class, he left to join Maynard Ferguson's band for eight months, where Miles Davis first took notice of him. Following a brief stay with Slide Hampton, Zawinul became Dinah Washington's pianist from 1959 to 1961, and then spent a month with Harry "Sweets" Edison before Cannonball Adderley picked him to fill the piano chair in his quintet. There Zawinul stayed and blossomed for nine years, contributing several compositions to the Adderley band book -- among them the major pop hit "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy," "Walk Tall," and "Country Preacher" -- and ultimately helping to steer the Adderley group into the electronic era. While with Adderley, Zawinul evolved from a hard bop pianist to a soul-jazz performer heavily steeped in the blues, and ultimately a jazz-rock explorer on the electric piano. Toward the end of his Adderley gig (1969-1970), he was right in the thick of the new jazz-rock scene, recording several pioneering records with Miles Davis, contributing the title tune of Davis' In a Silent Way album. 

After recording a self-titled solo album, Zawinul left Adderley to form Weather Report with Wayne Shorter and Czech bassist Miroslav Vitous in November 1970. Weather Report gave the increasingly self-confident Zawinul a platform to evolve even further as his interest in propulsive grooves and music from Africa and the Middle East ignited and developed. He gradually dropped the electric piano in favor of a series of ever more sophisticated synthesizers, which he mastered to levels never thought possible by those who derided the instruments as sterile, unfeeling machines. Weather Report eventually became a popular group that appealed to audiences beyond jazz and progressive rock, thanks in no small part to Zawinul's hit song "Birdland." 

When Zawinul and Shorter finally came to a parting of ways in 1985, Zawinul started to tour all by himself, surrounded by keyboards and rhythm machines, but resurfaced the following year with a short-lived extension of Weather Report called Weather Update (which did not leave any recordings). Weather Update quickly evolved into another group, the Zawinul Syndicate, which over the span of a decade tilted increasingly toward groove-oriented world music influences. Zawinul has showed renewed interest in his European roots, collaborating with fellow Viennese classical pianist Friedrich Gulda from 1987 to 1994, producing a full-blown classically based symphony, Stories of the Danube, in 1993, and following the near-disastrous Malibu fires of 1994, moving from California to New York City in order to be closer to Europe. In 2002 he released Faces & Places, his first studio album in several years and one that boasted an international roster of supporting musicians. Since that time he has released a handful of albums including Midnight Jam in 2005 and Brown Street in 2007. 

Though he continues to explore new musical paths at an age when most jazzers are long set in their ways, Zawinul's influence upon jazz has waned in recent years due to the jazz mainstream's retreat from electronics back to acoustic post-bop. But Zawinul's uplifting, still-invigorating later music may make him a prophet again if global music infiltrates the jazz world.

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WEATHER REPORT

Weather Report was an influential jazz fusion band of the 1970s and early 1980s combining jazz and latin jazz with art music, ethnic music, r&b, funk and rock elements (in varying proportions throughout their career). Their music is demonstrative of high levels of compositional[citation needed] and improvisational skill.

Being one of the groups most frequently associated with both fusion and jazz-rock may be seen as ironic, as Joe Zawinul once said in a Down Beat interview he "did not understand what fusion meant" and Pat Metheny once revealed he and Jaco Pastorius sometimes used to talk about how much they disliked that musical style called "jazz-rock".

The beginning

Founders pianist Joe Zawinul and saxophonist Wayne Shorter first met and became friends in 1959 as they had both played in Maynard Ferguson's Big Band. Zawinul went on to play with Cannonball Adderley's group in the 1960s and Shorter with Miles Davis second great quintet where both made their mark among the best composers in jazz. Zawinul later joined Shorter with Miles Davis's first recordings of fusion music as part of the studio groups which recorded In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew, although Zawinul was never part of Davis' touring line-up. Weather Report is, despite this, often seen as a spin-off from the group of musicians associated with Miles Davis in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Initially, the band's music featured extended improvisation, similar to Davis's Bitches Brew-period work, and instrumentation included both a traditional trap set drummer ( Alphonse Mouzon ) and a second percussionist (first Airto Moreira, later Dom Um Romão). The group was unusual and innovative in abandoning the soloist-accompaniment demarcation of straight-ahead jazz and instead featuring continuous improvisation by every member of the band.

Reedman Wayne Shorter further pioneered the role of the soprano sax (taking the torch from Sidney Bechet's, Steve Lacy's and John Coltrane's earlier efforts) and both Zawinul and original bassist Miroslav Vitouš experimented with rock guitarists' electronic effects, Zawinul on piano and synthesizers, Vitouš on upright bass, often bowed, as a second horn-like voice.

Early recordings

Weather Report's self titled debut album Weather Report won Down Beat magazine's Album of the Year in 1971. Although the album features a softer sound than in later years (acoustic bass and no synthesizers were used), it is still considered a classic of early fusion. The opening song "Milky Way" uses a technique by which the piano strings are sounded not by the hammers from the keyboard itself but from Shorter's soprano saxophone playing the notes and causing sympathetic vibrations in the piano strings.

The following year, Weather Report's second album, I Sing the Body Electric, featured their first use of electronics beyond an electric keyboard (a synthesizer and sound effects were utilized). Part of the album was recorded live in Japan, an excerpt from what was then a Japanese-only release. The entire Live in Tokyo double album would later be released as an import and made available in the United States.

Becoming "Funkier"

Starting with 1973's Sweetnighter, Zawinul decided to abandon the (primarily) acoustic group improvisation format and the band started to take a new direction. Weather Report became more funk/groove oriented while adding more structure to both song and improvisational sections. This change would prove to be not the best fit for Vitouš' talents as his relative lack of interest in playing more repetitive, funky vamps would become an issue (parts of Sweetnighter employ an electric bass studio sideman). Eventually this led to his departure and replacement by a fretless electric bass player Shorter knew who was playing with Chuck Mangione's group, Alphonso Johnson. The last song on the album, Shorter's "Non Stop Home", would arguably foreshadow the band's hallmark sound that would appear more in evidence on their next album.

Instability with the drum chair

For its first 8 years of existence the group had difficulty finding a permanent drummer, moving through an approximate average of one drummer per year Alphonse Mouzon, Eric Gravatt, Greg Errico, Ishmael Wilburn, Skip Hadden, Darryl Brown, Leon 'Ndugu' Chancler, Chester Thompson, Narada Michael Walden and Alex Acuña until Jaco Pastorius helped recruit Peter Erskine in 1978. Erskine and Omar Hakim later on were the only Weather Report drummers that played with the band more than 2 years.

Middle Period

Weather Report's breakout album that established its hallmark sound would be Mysterious Traveller from 1974. For the first time an electric bass (performed by Philadelphian Alphonso Johnson) would be used on nearly every song. In addition, general compositional technique would be greatly heightened and Zawinul would exploit improvements in synthesizer technology on the recording. Some of the extra musical effects beyond just the musical synthesizer playing include crowd cheering (taken from an actual Rose Bowl game), space alien sounds, and child-like cries (Zawinul's own son recorded in their home). Mysterious Traveller would begin Weather Report's unprecedented string of four consecutive Down Beat "Album of the Year" awards.

Tale Spinnin', recorded in 1975, made even further strides in utilizing technological improvements in synthesizers. The album also showcased more of Wayne Shorter's soloing to the extent that he probably solos more on that album than any other Weather Report record. Shorter would also record the seminal and well received Latin-jazz classic of the 1970s, Native Dancer, under his own name that same year with the Brazilian vocalist Milton Nascimento. The Weather Report effort won the Down Beat best album award again and the Shorter/Nascimento effort was runner up.

The "Jaco" Years

By 1976's Black Market, the group's music had evolved further from the open-ended funk jams into more melody-oriented, concise forms, which also achieved a greater mass-market appeal. Most notably, this album introduced virtuoso bassist Jaco Pastorius into the group, although he only played on two of this album's tracks. Alphonso Johnson (who played on the other 5 songs) decided to leave Weather Report to play with the Billy Cobham/George Duke Band (a group that featured a young John Scofield on guitar). Black Market was perhaps the most rock oriented studio album by Weather Report, in part due to former Frank Zappa sideman Chester Thompson playing drums on most of the songs (he later would be recruited into the touring band of Genesis). Black Market again won Down Beat's album of the year.

The addition of Jaco Pastorius helped push the group to the height of their popularity. Their biggest individual hit, jazz standard "Birdland", from the Heavy Weather album in 1977, even made the pop charts that year. The group also appeared on television on one of Don Kirshner's Rock Concerts. Heavy Weather proved to be the band's most successful album in terms of sales, while still retaining wide critical acclaim. Pastorius established a new standard in fretless electric bass playing and added two compositions of his own. Heavy Weather dominated Weather Report's disc awards, including their last Down Beat "Album of the Year" award.

Jaco Pastorius appeared on four more Weather Report albums: Mr. Gone in 1978, 8:30 in 1979, Night Passage in 1980, and their second album just called Weather Report, recorded in 1981 and released in 1982. Pastorius departed the group in late 1981 as he had to fulfil touring requirements with his own Word of Mouth Big Band. By the time he left Weather Report, Jaco had begun displaying symptoms of manic depression which would leave him with serious problems later in life.

Owing to Pastorius' professional involvement with Joni Mitchell throughout the latter half of the 1970s, Mitchell hired the Heavy Weather and 8:30 line-ups en masse (although without Zawinul in each case), to play on her studio albums Don Juan's Reckless Daughter and Mingus, respectively.

Down Beat's "One Star" rating

Many of the group's earlier albums had received the highest possible (5-star) record rating in Down Beat's record reviews. However, in 1978 the group recorded the controversial and experimental Mr. Gone, which received only a 1-star review from Down Beat magazine. The group arranged for a rebuttal interview with the magazine to defend their efforts. Zawinul and Pastorius were defiant in their responses to the interviewer, Shorter more philosophical, and Erskine the most reticent of the four. Some say this particular Down Beat review was the most controversial in the magazine's history.

They would make a comeback and follow up with their last album of the 1970s. 1979's 8:30 is considered to be one of their best, combining both live and studio recordings on a double LP release. The group won the 1979 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Fusion Performance for 8:30. Despite the Mr. Gone controversy, the band's follow-up 8:30 tour was probably their most well attended. Zawinul has been quoted as saying there were more stage hands hired for that tour than at any other time in the band's history. The group toured intentionally as a quartet now, temporarily abandoning the percussionist chair.

1980s

The band kept releasing new albums once a year with various line-ups until 1986. A high quality video (Live in Japan — VHS and Laser Disc only) featuring Omar Hakim on drums, Victor Bailey on bass, and Mineu Cinelo on percussion was also released around 1984. This video was released on DVD in 2007 and is currently available.

Weather Report did not manage to match the critical or commercial success they enjoyed during the 1970s during this decade. It was also becoming harder to market jazz fusion as traditional jazz was making a comeback at the time. Shorter and Zawinul mutually decided to disband in 1986 after recording their last album, This is This! Both would play jazz fusion with their own groups for a time before moving on to new styles of music.

Releases since the band's breakup

A "post band" Weather Report double CD, Live and Unreleased was made available in 2002, featuring vintage live recordings during the late 1970s/early 1980s with various personnel. In September 2006 Columbia/Legacy released a Weather Report boxed set, Forecast: Tomorrow. It includes 3 CDs of mostly pre-released material (from 1970–1985, excluding This is This!) and a DVD of the entire September 29, 1978 performance in Offenbach, Germany (with Erskine and Pastorius) not previously available.

A DVD video of the 1976 Montreux Jazz Festival performance (featuring the Heavy Weather lineup of Pastorius, Acuna, and Badrena) has become available as well. There also may be a chance that Columbia/Legacy may re-release the 1984 Live in Japan concert on DVD at some point in the future.

Alumni

Other former members of Weather Report include bassists Alphonso Johnson and Victor Bailey, drummer and percussionist Alex Acuña, percussionists Manolo Badrena and Robert Thomas Jr., and drummers Peter Erskine and Omar Hakim.

Brief analysis of the leaders

Josef Zawinul

It was first with Miles Davis, then with Weather Report that keyboardist Josef Zawinul became almost synonymous with the jazz fusion era, contributing a number of genre-defining compositions. One such composition (although not typical) is the band's signature tune "Birdland" from the band's top seller Heavy Weather.

Zawinul's playing style is often dominated by quirky melodic improvisations — simultaneously bebop, ethnic and pop-sounding — combined with sparse but rhythmic big-band chords or bass lines. In Weather Report, he often employed a vocoder as well as pre-recorded sounds played (i.e., filtered and transposed) through a synthesizer, creating a very distinctive, often beautiful, synthesis of jazz harmonics and "noise" ("using all the sounds the world generates"). Many consider Zawinul the "best" synthesizer player "in jazz", and he frequently employed over 10 keyboards with live settings of his bands.

Mr. Zawinul passed away on September 11, 2007 after a battle with Merkel cell cancer.

Wayne Shorter

Wayne Shorter's role was not as prominent as it was with Miles Davis during the 1960s and this led to some criticism of the group. However, he is regarded as one of the all time greats on both the tenor and soprano saxophone as well as a composer. At the urging of Davis before he left his band, Shorter began using the soprano saxophone and played it exclusively in Weather Report's debut recording. On later records, he played both soprano and tenor saxophone - sometimes on the same piece. Shorter is known for playing in a quite economical and "listening" style in many WR recordings, often adding subtle harmonic, melodic and/or rhythmic complexity by responding to other member's improvisations. Still, in some situations (with or without WR), he can also be frenetic like, for instance, John Coltrane or Michael Brecker.

Discography

Weather Report (1971)
I Sing the Body Electric (1972)
Live in Tokyo (1972)
Sweetnighter (1973)
Mysterious Traveller (1974)
Tale Spinnin' (1975)
Black Market (1976)
Heavy Weather (1977)
Mr. Gone (1978)
8:30 (1979)
Night Passage (1980)
Weather Report (1982)
Procession (1983)
Domino Theory (1984)
Sportin' Life (1985)
This is This! (1986)
Live and Unreleased (2002)
Forecast: Tomorrow (2006)

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