An incident transpired on the NPR affiliate KCUR in 2001 that encapsulates the conservative bias of Kansas City’s jazz establishment. The hosts of the weekly Just Jazz radio program aired the title selection of Wayne Shorter’s new live album Footprints only to stop the track after two or three minutes. They apologized to listeners for unintentionally exposing them to the vital improvised music of a living legend.
Even prior to the death of Shorter last year, prominent Kansas City jazz musicians regularly band together to faithfully recreate the original compositions Shorter recorded in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They don’t acknowledge the equally important music Shorter made in the final fifty years of his life.
The new archival release Wayne Shorter- Celebration, Volume 1 documents Shorter’s ongoing power at the Stockholm Jazz Festival in 2014. Inspired by pianist Danilo Pérez, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade, Shorter overflows with fresh ideas just as compelling as work he made decades earlier.
Shorter’s 1964 recording Speak No Evil is an undeniable classic. Many later Shorter albums- Celebration, Volume 1 now among them-are also tour de forces. Shorter never stopped pushing the music forward. The hosts of the Just Jazz program would have had no use for Celebration, Volume 1. The contrary indicator acts as a powerful endorsement.