Wayne Shorter On Jazz: ‘How Do You Rehearse The Unknown?’

The New York Times doesn’t mince words when it writes, “Wayne Shorter is generally acknowledged to be jazz’s greatest living composer.”

Going back to his days jamming with John Coltrane fresh out of the Army, Shorter has seemed to move, Zelig-like, through some of the most important combos in jazz — from Art Blakey‘s Jazz Messengers, to his days with Miles Davis, to the groundbreaking fusion band Weather Report.

As Shorter approaches his 80th birthday, he’s just reunited with the label that championed him as a bandleader back in the 1960s, Blue Note Records. On the new album Without a Net, he leads a quartet with whom he’s spent more than a decade through live recordings and some striking new compositions.