Jazz, soul & blues
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter (1933-2023), an American saxophonist and composer, was one of the greatest of modern jazz. Having passed through Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and then Miles Davis’s quintet in the 1960s, he co-founded Weather Report with Joe Zawinul. He performed several times at the Montreux Jazz Festival, notably in 1991 and 1992 alongside Herbie Hancock.
Wayne Shorter, a master of the saxophone in Montreux
From the Jazz Messengers to Weather Report
Born in 1933 in New Jersey, Wayne Shorter marked jazz at every stage: soloist and composer with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, then with Miles Davis’s second great quintet, he co-founded Weather Report in 1971, one of the major jazz-fusion bands. He gave us standards such as “Footprints” and “Speak No Evil”.
A Montreux regular
Wayne Shorter returned to Montreux several times in the 1990s, often in the company of pianist Herbie Hancock. His reading of “Footprints” in 1991 is among the high points captured by the festival. A multiple Grammy Award winner, he died in 2023.
At the Cully Jazz, 2016
Beyond Montreux, Wayne Shorter also left his mark on the Cully Jazz Festival, in Lavaux. On 15 April 2016 his quartet — Danilo Pérez on piano, John Patitucci on bass and Terri Lyne Carrington on drums — gave one of the most talked-about concerts of the edition, praised by the French-Swiss press (Le Temps).
Videos
Wayne Shorter, “Footprints”, at the Montreux Jazz Festival (1991).