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Remembering When LA's Jazz Society Honored Saxophone Great Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter performs on the stage of the 51st edition of "Jazz a Juan" a Jazz music festival on July 15, 2011 in Juan-les-Pins, Antibes, southeastern France, in homage to famous Jazz musician Miles Davis.
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Sebastien Nogier/AFP/Getty Images
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Wayne Shorter gives the thumbs up as he holds his Grammy award for Best Jazz Instrumental Solo for "In Walked Wayne" at the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Feb. 23, 2000.
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Vince Bucci/AFP/Getty Images
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Jazz pianist Herbie Hancock (L) and saxophonist Wayne Shorter perform during the Paris' "Jazz à la Villette" music festival, Sept. 4, 2007.
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Patrick Kovarik/AFP/Getty Images
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Saxophonist Wayne Shorter performs with the Wayne Shorter Quartet during the 32nd Vitoria-Gasteiz Jazz Festival, on July 15, 2008, in the northern Spanish Basque city of Vitoria.
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Rafa Rivas/AFP/Getty Images
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US saxophonist and jazz composer Wayne Shorter performs during the "Tribute to Miles" night at the 45th Montreux Jazz Festival on July 13, 2011 in Montreux.
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Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images
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Saxophonist Wayne Shorter (L) and bassist John Patitucci perform during the Marciac Jazz festival, Aug. 13, 2005 in Marciac, southern France.
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Lionel Bonaventure/AFP/Getty Images
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LA Jazz Society honors saxophone great Wayne Shorter (photos)
Editor's note
This story was originally published in 2012. We are republishing the interview — with some small updates — and audio today after learning that Wayne Shorter has died at the age of 89 in Los Angeles.
In 2012, the L.A. Jazz Society chose composer and saxophone great Wayne Shorter, then 79, as its Tribute Honoree.
The New Jersey-born musician began his jazz career in the late 1950's playing with bandleader Horace Silver, and later joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and the Miles Davis quintet. Shorter went on to record his own highly acclaimed albums, including "Speak No Evil" and "Juju."
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Listen: What jazz great Wayne Shorter told us about his musical inspiration
Shorter told us in 2012 that he was originally an art major and it was a twist of fate that he ended up in a music class.
"They put me in a music class for disciplinary reasons because I played hooky," said Shorter. "My music teacher was a disciplinarian and he played the Mozart G minor 40. That’s like a jazz cymbal beat. I discovered that when I was in my junior year in high school."
Shorter said he looked at jazz stars like Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk like they were superheroes.
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"And then hearing them, I wanted to get in there with them," said Shorter.
Shorter experimented with a variety of genres in more than 50 years as a jazz artist. He was with Davis when the innovative trumpeter began moving into jazz fusion in the mid 1960s.
Shorter, known as much for his composing as his playing, co-wrote "Sanctuary" on the groundbreaking 1969 Miles Davis fusion album "Bitches' Brew." A year earlier, Shorter composed most of the music on Davis' last acoustic album "Nefertiti."
Shorter also co-founded the acclaimed fusion group Weather Report in the 1970s.
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