The lessons of Wayne Shorter, engine of imagination
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Wayne Shorter at the the 41st Annual Kennedy Center Honors, where he was an honoree along with singer and actress Cher, composer and pianist Philip Glass and country music star Reba McEntire.
In early 2005, at the end of some demanding days of book promotion, a transportation mix-up left Wayne late for a joint interview with me. He'd never been late before his Weather Report co-leader Joe Zawinul once told me that an enduring image of tour life was arriving in the hotel lobby at call time to find Wayne "always already standing there with his little saxophone, neat and ready to go." Touring for decades makes most professional musicians punctual imagine what tough bandleaders like Art Blakey and Miles Davis said or did to any sideman who made their groups late for a flight.
We went ahead and started the interview without Wayne, but moments before we went on the air, the interviewer leaned over and murmured some cynical asides to me, about Wayne and other jazz musicians' propensity for lateness and irresponsibility. The remarks were stunningly unprofessional, stereotypical and dated. We went live to millions before I could respond.
Wayne arrived and entered the studio at the first break. I shot him a look that warned, "this interviewer can't be trusted. Let's just get through it." He shot back a look that answered "already ascertained and believe me, I've seen it all before. Stay cool."
We got through the otherwise-standard interview and headed to the elevator with Carolina. When the doors closed, I was surprised to find myself falling apart. For years, I'd been nothing but self-possessed and fully composed in Wayne's presence. Now, tears fell before I could stop them; I slumped into the elevator's corner. The scornful interviewer hadn't undone me. Not alone. I'd been bridging the linear and operational worlds to Wayne's vast creative universe for years, first with a book narrative and then with that book's publicity. This work had been a privilege and serious fun besides, but it was on the elevator that, finally, exhaustion sank in. Wayne's vast creative universe was a lot to bridge.
Carolina hugged me, offering some soothing words in her Brazilian Portuguese. "You've done so much for the book," she said. "I understand." Of course she did. She was Wayne's primary bridge in life, a role she fulfilled with angelic constancy.
"Hey," Wayne said, as tenderly as anyone had ever spoken to me. He put a hand on my shoulder. "All this, right now?" he said, gesturing at my tear-stained face and defeated posture. "I'm going to use it in a composition. It will be transformed."
My sorrow vanished, replaced by the usual pleasure in Wayne. Transforming challenging emotions, turning poison into medicine, using resistance to fly. These were the great themes of Wayne's mission in art and life. For the 600th time I marveled at the unshakable conviction of his Buddhist practice and laughed at the shrewd assessment of what he could create from a situation. I found comfort in the greatest living jazz-and-beyond composer making something out of my little elevator breakdown, as he did from anything and everything. I found even deeper reassurance in knowing Wayne would transfigure my emotion into one element of a dense and epic musical dream. He'd compose me well.
After seeing Carolina and Wayne off, I walked down through Manhattan and across the long, solid Brooklyn Bridge in the morning sun. Wayne's characterization of his first time playing onstage with Miles sprang to mind: "I felt like a cello, I felt the viola, I felt liquid, dot-dash, and colors started really coming." Improvising my own experience in the moment felt brighter with Wayne there, composing even a small part of my story.
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Tuesday, March 7, 2023 at 11:00 am