Wayne Shorter was an American jazz saxophonist and composer born in Newark, New Jersey, US. He was among the most influential hard-bop and modal musicians and a pioneer of jazz-rock fusion music. Shorter became prominent in the late 1950s as a member of, and eventually primary composer for, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. In the 1960s, he joined Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet and co-founded the jazz fusion band Weather Report. He recorded over 20 albums as a bandleader.
Many Shorter compositions became jazz standards, and his music earned worldwide recognition, critical praise, and commendation. Shorter won 12 Grammy Awards. He was acclaimed for his mastery of the soprano saxophone since switching his focus from the tenor in the late 1960s and beginning an extended reign in 1970 as Down Beat's annual poll-winner on that instrument, winning the critics' poll for ten consecutive years and the readers' for 18. The New York Times' Ben Ratliff described Shorter in 2008 as "probably jazz's greatest living small-group composer and a contender for greatest living improviser." In 2017, he received the Polar Music Prize.
