A Uniquely American Music Era Has Passed Into History

Wayne Shorter’s passing ends the jazz era.

Photo by the author.

I remember the first time I heard jazz—real jazz, that is. I can remember that moment as if it were yesterday.

Well, my dad had a lot of the older jazz stuff sitting around our new Motorola Tabletop Stereophonic Record Player with the “floating” tonearm.

Whew… that puppy was awesome. A speaker on both sides!

Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Pete Fountain, and Count Basie were constants on the weekends. I was in my early teens and didn’t mind it at all. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it either.

Yeah, it was the time of the Beatles, but I was a total devotee to Motown. Shirelles, Temptations, Otis, Smokey, and the ever-amazing Gladys Knight, but there was something in that music Pop played that got lodged in my ears.

One day, by sheer accident, I put the needle down on a record that was about to be used for target practice. It’s a long story, and I’ve told it before, but suffice it to say it was a decision that changed my entire life, and I can remember it as clearly as yesterday.

The album was Naima. The artist was John Coltrane. The tune I put the needle on was Giant Steps.

Really, jazz friends, what are the friggin’ chances?

And in three minutes, my life would never be the same. It was like destiny simply walked up and tapped my shoulder with a sledge hammer.

I was awake all night and spent most of the next day listening to this little stack of albums again and again.

Coltrane, Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Ornette Coleman….

Where in the hell did this stuff come from? Music from the gods for sure.

From that point, every nickel I had went into my collection. Coltrane led me to Eric Dolphy, Dolphy led me to Pharoah Sanders, Sanders led me to Miles Davis, and Miles led me to Wayne Shorter.

I was 16 years old, it was 1965. My music made me sort of a weirdo to almost every other 16-year-old on the planet… or at least in my little west side neighborhood in Phoenix. But I was not interested in what anyone had to say, I had found my groove and wanted nothing more than to stay in it and find out where it went.

Jazz was my number one focus.

These were heady times for the jazz I loved so much.

Now, imagine being a kid in Phoenix, Arizona, and being totally involved with Bebop jazz. I literally hadn’t another soul who wished to hear the music at all, let alone talk about it.

All of this worked itself out while I was playing rock drums on weekend gigs and practicing my jazz chops along with the likes of Elvin, Blakey, and Williams every time I sat at my kit.

Wayne Shorter and his tenor sax played with nearly every major legend in the world of jazz. He had an vital role in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers when he was in his twenties. and together with others, including trumpeter Lee Morgan, they produced a number of timeless records.

He joined Miles Davis’ legendary quintet of the mid and late 1960s, where, along with drummer Tony Williams and pianist Herbie Hancock, he pushed Davis to achieve new heights.

And then rock began to enter the sound room of the acoustic jazz players. Fusion was born, and one of the great leaders of the movement was the indomitable Shorter.

One afternoon I was at the record shop and they had just received a new set of records. Right on top was Weather Report — also the name of the band.

The band featured Joe Zawinul on keyboards and Wayne Shorter on Tenor Sax.

I’d heard Shorter many times, but this time he seemed to be more confident, and ethereal, and he stole the show. Melodic, driving, pushing the band to new heights of emotional playing.

He continued exploring and reached a sort of pinnacle with Miles Davis on Bitches Brew, a record unlike any other in the genre.

I listened to every Wayne Shorter recording I could get my hands on. And while Trane is and will always be my most admired musician, Shorter is standing right there with him.

To think that this music was created by one generation of people, over the span of just a few decades is remarkable.

From Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker in the early 50s to the pinnacle of the music in the 70s, to its slow decline throughout the 2000s, jazz has been one of the great American inventions.

And, I believe, it created some of the most incredible music of any era.

It was the era of Downbeat, Blue Note, and Impulse. It was the era of constantly changing bands. A player could choose to be a leader, put together a band, cut an album or two, and move on to new musicians to play with. New players meant new sounds to explore.

There have been many who came up during that time period and kept the traditions going, but it was much harder to get through the clutter of contemporary pop music and the bad judgment of the music industry, which put pimply-faced kids with little taste at the top of their customer pyramids.

Of course, we still have some wonderful musicians still hard at work providing incredible jazz, but there is a different swing to it. A tightening of the groove, so to speak.

And that’s OK, but it is also a newer iteration of the great Bebop and Postbop eras that gave us so many incredible groups, tunes, and memories. Is it enough to endure? I don’t honestly know.

I am an old guy, so the prime of my music life was during the high point of what I refer to as classic jazz.

And now, they are nearly all gone.

Elvin, Tony, Art… Trane and Bird, Dizzy.

The list is so hard to do.

I am immensely saddened by the loss to humanity that the passing of these incredible players has been.

But I am equally fond of the memories of playing Weather Report, Adam’s Apple, and Bitches Brew in my car with the volume at eleven, just cruising the warm summer nights in the desert.

Thanks, Wayne.

For everything.

(Wayne Shorter passed on 3–2–2023.)