RIP Wayne Shorter
It's becoming a somewhat maudlin tradition now to go on "remembrance pilgrimages" on YouTube and watch performances and interviews of musicians that have passed on. It's kind of jarring because the music that I'm working on now is not jazz so I have to shift gears and go back and reacquaint myself with listening to jazz, now with the passing of Wayne Shorter. Jazz is viewed as being more of a vertical, harmonic phenomenon, where musicians are improvising over chord changes or grooves, but Shorter's improvisations are predominantly linear. I think that's what we like about his approach--especially on the soprano sax. What I also realized is that there are a lot of commonalities between genres, yet require a cognitive shift. Whether that's going to influence what I'm doing now is doubtful--any more than listening to rock would influence jazz--although Miles Davis was very influenced by pop and rock. What's is also remarkable about a lot of jazz...
