Wayne Shorter, sax man, jazz giant, honored by L.A. Jazz Society

Music

Wayne Shorter, multiple Grammy Award winner, saxophonist and composer, is the 2012 Jazz Tribute honoree of the Los Angeles Jazz Society’s 29th annual Jazz Tribute Awards Dinner & Concert set for Sunday, October 21, 2012. Leonard Maltin will host the festivities and Herbie Hancock serves as honorary chair.

LAJS 2012 Jazz Tribute awardees include

  • Lifetime Achievement Award recipient John Pisano
  • Composer/Arranger Award recipient Gordon Goodwin
  • Jazz Vocalist Award recipient Denise Donatelli
  • David L. Abell Angel Award recipient Jim Barrall
  • Jazz Educator Award recipients Roger Neumann & Scott Whitfield
  • Teri Merrill-Aarons Founder Award recipient Terence Love
  • Shelly Manne Memorial “New Talent Award” recipient Jamael Dana Dean. 

That last award has special meaning as it is named for Los Angeles Jazz Society President Flip Manne’s late husband, the drummer Shelly Manne. 

After the dinner (love gnawing on rubber chicken while watching awards doled out), the evening carries on with a concert. Featured artists: Wayne Shorter & friends, John Pisano Trio, Denise Donatelli Trio, Gordon Goodwin, and Jamael Dean Dana Trio.  

How fabulous is that? Concert tickets only are available and insiders tell us the concert is listed on Goldstar.  

Multiple Grammy award winner, saxophonist and composer, Wayne Shorter, now 77, started his career with Horace Silver, then moved to the seminal jazz tribe, Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, becoming the band’s music director. That’s already huge, if you stop right there. But there’s more. Miles Davis brought  Shorter into  his (second great) quintet in 1964. There the tenor man (later swapping to soprano sax) became the band’s prolific composer. Weather Report a seminal fusion group, melding jazz and rock, was his vehicle in the seventies. Whether Shorter’s primary impact on jazz has been as a composer or as a saxophonist, he is indisputedly one of jazz’s leading figures. Shorter is recipient of nine Grammy Awards from  17 nominations as well as the prestigious Jazz Master award from the National Endowment of the Arts.

Los Angeles Jazz Society | Jazz Tribute Awards Dinner & Concert | Sunday Oct 21 | Universal City Hilton

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