Wayne Shorter (born August 25, 1933) is an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Shorter came to wide prominence in the late 1950s as a member of, and eventually primary composer for Art Blakey‘s Jazz Messengers. In the 1960s, he went on to join Miles Davis‘s Second Great Quintet, and from there he co-founded the jazz fusion band Weather Report. He has recorded over 20 albums as a bandleader.

Many of Shorter’s compositions have become jazz standards, and his output has earned worldwide recognition, critical praise and various commendations. Shorter has won 11 Grammy Awards. He has also received acclaim for his mastery of the soprano saxophone (after switching his focus from the tenor in the late 1960s), beginning an extended reign in 1970 as Down Beat‘s annual poll-winner on that instrument, winning the critics’ poll for 10 consecutive years and the readers’ for 18. The New York Times described Shorter in 2008 as “probably jazz’s greatest living small-group composer and a contender for greatest living improviser.” In 2017, he was awarded the Polar Music Prize.

Wayne Shorter was born in Newark, New Jersey, United States, and attended Newark Arts High School, from which he graduated in 1952. He loved music, being encouraged by his father to take up the clarinet as a teenager; his older brother Alan played alto saxophone before switching to the trumpet in college. While in high school Wayne also performed with the Nat Phipps Band in Newark, NJ. After graduating from New York Universitywith a degree in music education in 1956, Shorter spent two years in the U.S. Army, during which time he played briefly with Horace Silver. After his discharge, he played with Maynard Ferguson. In his youth Shorter had acquired the nickname “Mr. Gone”, which later became an album title for Weather Report.