Customer Reviews

Footprints: The Life and Work of Wayne Shorter

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Michelle Mercer has done the seemingly impossible: she has fully inhabited the far-out imagination of one of our greatest, and at times, seemingly most unreachable musicians, and brought back the subject from the outer space he's been confined to. Yes, it's a book about jazz; but only, truly, as an explication of life. Yes, it's a biography, but it's neither a Pollyana bio-pic nor is it a psychobabble psychobiography. Additionally, despite the affirming names of Shorter and Herbie Hancock on the cover, this effort is hardly an as-told-to "approved" bio. It's actually quite wonderfully like its subject: funny, strange, compelling--and as serious as your life.

This is book is amazing. I am neither a jazz expert nor a Wayne Shorter authority, but this book "puts me there." It's good writing if I want to continue with a story with which I am not familar and this book does just that. I am educating myself in the world of jazz and this is the best book I've come across yet.

I'm a big Wayne Shorter fan. In high school, Weather Report's fusion was one of the building blocks of broadening music past rock and R&B. In college, I went deep into Wayne's Blue Note period, and over the last several years Wayne's editions of the Jazz Messengers have moved me with their 60s ethereal tunes plus hard driving swing. Speak No Evil is one of my favorite albums, and I've always wanted a picture of Wayne that was deeper than the "Mr. Weird" character he's been tagged with. With the rise of his acoustic group, Wayne's finally earned enough acclaim to get this biographical treatment that should appeal to a wide range of his fans and musician admirers.

Technically inclined musicians may hunger for something a little deeper than this. The book does not go into musical analysis or explicit aspects of the creative process. What it does do is depict Wayne consistent to how he sees himself. The book is filled with Wayne's nonmusical influences. How he arrives at his Buddhist faith. How tragedy has been a consistent struggle for him. How he tries to create movies in sound. Wayne's a complex cat and I doubt it's easy to try to peg him down in under 300 pages. But this book adds a lot to my picture of Wayne the human being.

I agree with the earlier reviewer who says this book doesn't reveal but so much of his solo Blue Note sides. The book doesn't try to recreate the studio experience of those classic sessions in the way that Ashley Kahn's "Love Supreme" or "Kind of Blue" books do. Perhaps it's because this author chooses to emphasize Wayne the touring musician over Wayne the compositional genius. In that vein, the glimpses of Weather Report as a touring band are very insightful. Many of Wayne's fans have struggled to see how he seemed to be dominated by Joe Zawinul in Weather Report. Mercer's take [probably Wayne's take too] is that Wayne chose to cede more organizational control to Zawinul as he focused on more extramusical illuminations.

I'm a real big fan of Wayne so it's hard for me to be objective. No, this is probably not the first jazz biography you should read. But if you're a fan of jazz in its present and you'd like a good read on one of the last living legends connected to this great music, you can't go wrong with this book.

4.5 stars

--SD

I'm a jazz sax player, and just finished reading this book. It's a real page-turner, and I couldn't put it down. Though light on musical analysis (there is no musical notation in the text of the book), it delves deeply into the sources of Shorter's genius and creativity.

The coverage of Shorter's early years, and his obsession with movies (especially The Red Shoes), and with the children's novel The Water Babies, was quite revealing. I hadn't fully realized the extent of his early gifts in the visual arts, and the impact this has had on his playing and compositions.

Shorter's rapid rise to fame in the 50's and 60's receives excellent coverage, especially his association with Art Blakey and Miles Davis. There are priceless anecdotes that I had not heard before, but I'll leave those for the reader to discover.

I was also fascinated by the discussion of the Weather Report years. It was interesting to learn the working dynamics of that group, and the motivations behind Shorter's long association with it.

The latter third of the book (and of Shorter's life) is dominated by the seriousness of his devotion to Buddhist practice, and this influence this has had on his life and work. It seems that through this practice, he has achieved an inner sense of peace, which is evident in his music in the past decade or so.

Like a previous reviewer, I would have appreciated more detailed coverage of the classic Blue Note sessions like Speak No Evil & Adam's Apple, which recieve only passing mention. However, the rest of the narrative is so well constructed that this is a minor flaw, and the overall effort still merits 5 stars. It's the most engaging jazz bio that I've read in a long time.

this book is both a loving, objective view of the still undervalued shorter's career, and a much-needed antidote to the dull, fact-laden jazz bios which have lumbered down the pike here of late.
i would recommend it even if you were not familiar with
shorter's career.

"Music is a drop of water, in the ocean of life." When Wayne Shorter makes a statement like that - it says something to me, as a musician and as a human being. This is a fab story of a difficult but rewarding life. All ends well. Wayne is an enigma. Highly enjoyable.

I'm not a jazz expert but I couldn't put this book down. It's fascinating, funny, dramatic, and moving and made me want to listen to Wayne's Shorter's music. Also illuminated his Soka Gakkai Buddhist practice in a concrete, applicable-in-everyday-life kind of way. I've been bored to tears by jazz books in the past but this author has storytelling chops as well as an obvious knowledge of the music.

This book is not a biography in the vein of Jack Chambers' Miles bio. For me, it provides a greater service: the author's close access to her subject allowed her to get to the heart of Shorter's creative process, spirituality, and personality. This is no small accomplishment, as Shorter is known for being an enigmatic character. Future biographers will write academic overviews of his career, but Mercer capitalizes on her first hand access to do something more valuable. She lends understanding to the themes and motifs that define the fascinating artist's life. When you listen to Shorter's music, it's clear his sound comes from a very unique place. Footprints gives us a clear idea of where Shorter's coming from.

Jazz musicians like Wayne Shorter are this county's gems. They should be treated as royalty but unfortunately they are virtually unknown to anyone other that jazz lovers and other musicians. Footprints describes the life and times of a master saxophonist and composer and I am so happy that the book was written before we lost Wayne so that we can be assured of getting his thoughts and hearing his words as opposed to the conjecture and speculations of someone else. I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking to learn about the struggles, challenges and motivations of a jazz artist in this country.

so: it's much difficult to write about a musician like Wayne, that is: 1) still alive 2) the incarnation of the current jazz avantgarde 3) way beyond as for his own spirituality and personal fulfillment on this planet. Well... maybe: who knows!!!

Michelle wrote this book and reading it, for me, has been a pure joy, since I have Weather Report melted somewhere in my DNA since I first heard them in 72/73. This book was long due and finally someone wrote it. Beautifully, I'd say. Hope it will contribute to your personal growth as it did for me.