Appreciating Wayne Shorter's intentionally confounding music

Wayne Shorter publicity photo from his website. Credit: Robert Ascroft

For more than a decade, saxophonist Wayne Shorter has led a quartet of Danilo Perez (piano), John Patitucci (bass) and Brian Blade (drums). This unit has always promised a lot of fiery interplay along with Shorter's singular virtuosity. The band has delivered on the interplay, but Shorter has been criticized for cryptic, hesitant playing in which he cuts off promising passages just as they seem to be gathering momentum.

Lots of barking has broken out among critics about the band's third album, "Without a Net," recently released after an eight-year recording gap. More than ever, detractors have attacked Shorter for his strange noodles and shouts. Others say he's now playing boldly and coherently — less wandering, more purpose.

Many tunes on the new album are simply blasé, but there are several I really like:

• "Pegasus," a chamber piece with the Imani Winds, somehow explains the blasé aesthetic and makes it much more enjoyable.
• "Orbits" captures the energy of the earlier years of the quartet.
• "Myrrh" begins quietly and ends with sustained screams from Shorter's soprano. The emotional intensity of this piece exceeds anything that current creative leaders in jazz — authors of deliberately ponderous and dreary sounds — would ever allow themselves to play.

I saw that Howard Mandel criticized Shorter for not taking control of his quartet with stronger playing. Such objections are useless. Maybe these mysterious detours and blind alleys are exercises derived from Buddhism, which Shorter practices. We aren't supposed to enjoy the music as conventional propulsive jazz with a 4-4 triplet pulse. The music is supposed to be occasionally or mostly confounding, with a breakthrough of enjoyment now and then. 

By the way, April is Jazz Appreciation Month, as declared by the Smithsonian Institution since 2002. This post and as many others as I can find time for this month are dedicated to appreciating jazz.