MMC PRESENTS: Lecture and Video about Wayne Shorter by Dave Stoler. 3/16/08

Dave Stoler, esteemed member of the Madison music community and the MMC, gave us a glimpse of the music and philosophy of composer and saxophonist Wayne Shorter on the afternoon of March 16th at Meriter's Grand Hall. In the first half of his lecture he chronicled Shorter’s life: His youth in New Jersey; his friendship with John Coltrane and how that shaped his early development; and his subsequent stints with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and the Miles Davis Quintet. This was interspersed with musical selections that provided examples of Shorter’s compositions and improvisations from each period. Dave explained that Shorter’s friendship with Coltrane led the men to share practice materials, and hence why the use of wide intervals and giant step harmonic progression typically associated with Coltrane are also found in Shorter’s music.

Dave also made it clear how Shorter’s compositional and improvisational vocabulary became at once more abstract and simple over time. Shorter’s “graduation” from Blakey’s Jazz Messengers to Miles Davis’ group offered him a creative context with more options than the more formulaic approach being used in the Blakey band at that time. This observation provided the starting point for the following half of Dave’s program, a French documentary on Shorter and his current group. The documentary did a wonderful job of balancing Shorter’s philosophic musings with riveting excerpts of his group performing, reflecting Wayne Shorter’s wondrous outlook on life. reviewed by Paul Hastil