Wayne Shorter Quartet + orchestra

At New England Conservatory, jazz runs hot in young musicians' veins. It means the blaze of improvisation and individual creativity, the warmth of interaction in small ensembles. Experimentation is encouraged. And that's cool!

This tradition goes back 40 years, when NEC launched the first fully accredited jazz studies program at a music conservatory. In celebrating the 40th anniversary of this creative first, NEC dips into the past, present, and future—as well as what bubbles up when jazz and classical music come together under one roof.

Wayne Shorter Quartet
featuring Brian Blade,
John Patitucci, Danilo Pérez
with the NEC Philharmonia, Hugh Wolff, conductor

Tonight's performance brings jazz legend Wayne Shorter and his quartet together with an exceptional orchestra, the NEC Philharmonia, conducted by NEC's Stanford and Norma Jean Calderwood Director of Orchestras, Hugh Wolff.

This project allows Shorter the opportunity to make good on his recent statement, "To hell with the rules. I'm going for the unknown."

Shorter has recently said of his quartet that "Our attitude is, 'Let's paint in watercolors, use good oils or get whiteout, if that's what you want to use." Of music generally, he says, "If your feelings are only red, blue, and yellow, how far can you extend yourself in a world that needs extending today?"

The enormous reach of Shorter's work includes Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Miles Davis's second great quintet, and the band Weather Report. Beginning in the 1980s, Shorter's concurrent career as a soloist and bandleader in his own right moved to center stage. Shorter continues to make quantum leaps, from arranging a Mendelssohn tune to his prominent role in defining Joni Mitchell's sound of the past several decades.

Shorter's quartet includes pianist Danilo Pérez—who taught a generation of NEC jazz students—as well as bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade.

Pérez has appeared with Shorter on two Grammy-winning CDs, including the large-ensemble project Alegria and Beyond the Sound Barrier with this quartet.

Wayne Shorter is the 2007 recipient of an honorary Doctor of Music degree from NEC.