WFDD Triad Arts Archive: Secrest Artists Series presents The Wayne Shorter Quartet

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Secrest Artists Series presents The Wayne Shorter Quartet

September 13, 2012

Saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter is truly a living legend. In the 1950s he played with and composed for Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. In the 60s he went on to join Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet along with pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Tony Williams. Mr. Shorter co-founded the ground breaking jazz fusion band Weather Report, and he’s recorded over 20 albums as a bandleader. Wayne Shorter is also one of today’s leading composers. Many of his jazz tunes like Footprints, Speak No Evil and Infant Eyes have become standards, and he’s currently working on commissions by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.

Next summer, Wayne Shorter and his quartet will be celebrating his 80th birthday at Orchestra Hall in Chicago, but next week, they’ll be right here in the Triad for a rare performance in Wait Chapel on the Wake Forest University campus featuring pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade. The Secrest Artists Series concert is Thursday night, September 20, at 7:30pm. It’s a fundraiser for the Amazon Aid Foundation and Acre Care with a portion of the ticket sales going to Amazon Aid.

The concert and fundraiser is presented in conjunction with the WFU Center for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability (CEES), the Office of Sustainability, the Department of Music, the Humanities Institute, 88.5 WFDD, and the WFU Office of the Provost.

There’ll be lots of pre and post-concert events as well, beginning with a jazz clinic and workshop with members of the quartet on Wednesday, September 19, at 3:30pm in Brendle Recital Hall, and WFU students and jazz educators and musicians from other regional jazz programs will participate. At 5:30pm National Geographic’s Sam Abell will give a photography lecture on the rain forest in Kulynch Auditorium in the Byrum Center, and at 4:00pm in DeTamble in Tribble Hall it's the Humanities Institute’s Karen Pinkus and her talk titled No Return: The Humanities Confronting Climate Change. On Thursday night at 6:40pm, Secrest presents its Signature Pre-performance Talk in the Balcony Room of Wait Chapel. The speaker will be WFU Associate professor of Music Jacqui Carrasco (wife of TAUC host David Ford). And on Friday, Sep. 21, at 7:00pm in the Byrum Center there will be a documentary film screening of Amazon Gold preceded by Center for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability Director and Professor of Biology Miles Silman.