★★★★★
The considerable artistic, critical and commercial success of Shorter's time with Miles Davis (1964-70) and Weather Report (1970-85) has tended to obscure the achievements and evolutionary interest of his stint with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. Most of his recorded work with Blakey provides the bulk of this set, a fascinating survey of his development from an August 1959 session with the great Wynton Kelly's quintet to an October 1962 Messengers recording...
- www.classical-music.com
2013-11-29
★★★★★
Plenty of jazz legends are still working in their 80s, but only one leads what is often acclaimed as the best small group in the world - saxophonist Wayne Shorter, whose 1959-62 recordings have been the source for this Proper Box retrospective. Shorter's friend John Coltrane was an obvious model, but the newcomer had his own sound by his mid-20s, as his first notes here reveal, in their spooky tenor tone, slow-burn construction and enigmatic melodic shapes...
- www.theguardian.com
2013-08-16
★★★★★
"We need fearlessness and not being afraid of the unexpected and the unknown." So says composer/saxophonist Wayne Shorter, who, at 79, is undoubtedly one of the last living greats of jazz's golden age. This new album - his first since 2005 - is a collection of live recordings that marks his return to Blue Note, the iconic label he first joined in 1959 when he was learning his trade with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers...
- recordcollectormag.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
Wayne Shorter Quartet "Without a Net" (Blue Note Records) Three and a half stars
There's a moment during Wayne Shorter's much-anticipated new album where someone, said to be a member of the string ensemble Imani Winds, lets out maybe the most natural response to Shorter's darting soprano saxophone. "Oh my God," she says with a touch of disbelief, and the band twists further into the hypnotic 23-minute composition "Pegasus."
It's an understandable reaction...
- www.latimes.com
2013-02-12
★★★★★
Jazz great Wayne Shorter recently spoke to the heart of his genre. "The six years I was with Miles (Davis), we never talked about music," he told National Public Radio in the US. "We never had a rehearsal. How do you rehearse the unknown?"
He's absolutely right. When done properly, jazz is a boundless medium through which improvisation is allowed to breathe. In fact, it's encouraged...
- www.bbc.co.uk
2013-02-12
★★★★★
Dusted ReviewsArtist: Wayne Shorter Quartet Album: Without a Net Label: Blue Note Review date: Feb. 11, 2013
During his 79 years on the planet, Wayne Shorter's saxophone sound has lived several lives of its own. From the Coltrane-enamored tenor of his first sides as a leader in the late-1950s for Vee-Jay through his early-'60s ascendancy on Blue Note and epochal tenure as Miles Davis's frontline confrere, then onward to the serpentine soprano-favoring fusion of Weather Report,...
- www.dustedmagazine.com
2013-02-12
★★★★★
The Wayne Shorter quartet (with pianist Danilo Pérez, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade) formed in 2000. Though many now regard them as the best small jazz ensemble in the world and they tour most years, this is only their third album - and all three are live. Shorter (pictured), 80 this year, returns to Blue Note, the scene of many of his 1960s triumphs...
- www.guardian.co.uk
2013-01-31
★★★★★
Wayne Shorter's Footprints live! is the sax player's first live album under his own name, which is difficult to believe given the length of his recording career. Of course, we have heard Shorter on live recordings plenty of times, with the Miles Davis Quintet, with Weather Report, and in various guest spots. One thing that's nice about this recording is that you hardly know it is live but for the applause between numbers...
- www.popmatters.com
2011-01-20
★★★★★
When saxophonist Wayne Shorter formed his current acoustic-only quartet several years ago, the jazz world's prodigal son had returned home. With Beyond the Sound Barrier, the group's second live recording and third over all, Wayne shows that--in truth--he had never left home. He was just storing up his incredible powers in plain sight. The prodigal son, my friends, is more than back--he is lit fully afire...
- www.popmatters.com
2011-01-20
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