Wayne Shorter Dies: Weather Report Saxophonist, Joni Mitchell Collaborator And Modern Jazz Icon Was 89
deadline.comWayne Shorter, the saxophonist and composer who was a major figure in the development of modern jazz, died Thursday at a Los Angeles hospital.
He was 89. His death was confirmed to The New York Times by his publicist Alisse Kingsley. No further information has yet been released.
A native of Newark, New Jersey, Shorter first came to acclaim in the 1950s and ’60s as the tenor saxophonist for the groundbreaking Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and, later, the massively influential Miles Davis Quintet.
Among other recordings, he played on Davis’ hit album Bitches Brew in 1969. A favorite of jazz enthusiasts nearly from the start of his career, Shorter broke through to wider public popularity both with Bitches Brew and, in 1971, his co-founding of Weather Report, the funk-jazz fusion group he co-founded with keyboardist Joe Zawinul and bassist Miroslav Vitous.
Read more on deadline.com
