Shorter Restates His Prowess on Sax

Saxophonist Wayne Shorter’s creative efforts have been somewhat uneven in the nearly six years since his wife, Ana Maria, died in the crash of TWA flight 800. His late ‘90s duet performances and recordings with pianist Herbie Hancock were largely contemplative efforts, probing thoughtfully through the layers of the long-term musical and personal relationships between the two players. In 2000, a concert at USC’s Bovard Auditorium provided a brief glimpse of Shorter performing some new compositions in the company of the University’s Thornton Symphony.

On Friday night, however, Shorter returned to Bovard as one of the headliners in the University’s L.A. Jazz 2002, leading a group of young all-stars in a set that was a powerful display of his still-potent talents as an improviser and a composer.

The ensemble--pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade--is the band Shorter has been working with regularly in recent months. The ensemble also appears on “Footprints Live!,” an album scheduled to be released on Verve in late May. Most of the material performed at Bovard is present on the album--from such classic Shorter tunes as “Footprints” to a complex setting of Sibelius’ “Valse Triste.”

Shorter was relatively laid-back in the opening part of the program, tending to improvise with long tones and brief, epigrammatic phrases contrasted with sudden bursts of notes. As the set continued, his creative imagination seemed to build, with more and more of the smooth, flowing, inventive lines that were so characteristic of his playing in the salad years of the ‘60s and ‘70s.

But Shorter’s efforts represented only half the story for this mesmerizing evening. The other half--or more--traces the playing of Perez, Patitucci and Blade. All are major talents, all have recordings under their own names, and all performed brilliantly, as supportive ensemble players and as individual soloists. Blade, in particular, was a galvanizing force and a catalyst, structuring his accompaniment with great attention to subtle differences in dynamic level, sometimes punctuating lines with eye-opening bursts of sound, at other times simmering below the surface with roiling accents of rhythm.

Perez brought harmonic cohesion to the improvised passages, via rhapsodic chording as well as sheer force of his percussive accents. And Blade intelligently employed his amazing virtuosity to shape and frame the overall proceedings.

In sum, the performance was a sparkling example of contemporary jazz at its world-class finest, and a welcome return of Shorter to the top level of his art.