most recent win just last month for “Endangered Species” in the category of Best Improvised Jazz Solo. In 2015, he was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy.
Born on Aug. 25, 1933, in Newark, New Jersey, he attended Newark Arts High School, where he played the clarinet because it reminded him of a “spaceship,” according to his bio on UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music, where he was a professor.
He later switched to playing the saxophone and graduated from New York University in 1956.Shorter was a dynamic saxophonist who originally began his career playing tenor, but he became a “lyrical voice” on the soprano saxophone when he played in the Weather Report, an iconic band that played from 1970 to 1986, according to Variety.
He led the band along with keyboardist Joe Zawinul.In the 1960s, he stood out as both a tenor saxophonist and in-house composer for two of the most recognized small jazz groups in history: Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and the Miles Davis Quintet.
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