01x01 - Newark Flash in NYC 1933-1971

[bunniefuu]

[gentle music]

[Wayne] There are two
great events in one's life.

One is being born

and the other is knowing why.

[gentle music swells]

[Joni] I think that it's important
that greatness

be recognized in this culture.

[Herbie] Visionaries open doorways

and those doorways are open
not just for themselves.

The doorways are open for everyone.

[Santana] You can just have a conversation

with him and you know that
you're in the presence

of no gravity, no time, no fear.

You're into a place of
grace and wonderment.

[upbeat music]

[Sonny] Wayne's playing, it
really has no definition.

And so it's very hard to
categorize what Wayne does.

It's his genius, his own genius

that makes what he does so spectacular.

[Neil] When I listen to Wayne Shorter,

my emotions are taken to places
that I didn't know existed.

[upbeat music]

[Neil] Or they feed places that
I didn't know were hungry.

He may be the single
most influential person

in my musical listening life.

[train whirring]

[Wayne] There was a railroad,
the Pennsylvania Railroad

at the end of one block.

Everyone was told not to
go on the railroad track.

When we first moved there,
you gonna hear these trains every night.

Then you found out you couldn't go to
sleep without hearing the...

[horn whirring]

[Radio Narrator] The mysterious traveler.

[Wayne] The radio shows I listened to
had mostly to do with mystery.

[Radio Narrator] This is
the mysterious traveler

inviting you to join me on
another journey into the realm

of the strange and the terrifying.

[Wayne] The one I liked a lot
was called "Lights Out".

[bells ringing]

[Wayne] This person say lights out,
everybody.

[upbeat jazz music]

[Michelle] Growing up in Newark really
toughened Wayne up, the Ironbound District

got its name because it was bounded by the
Pennsylvania railroad on three sides.

[Wayne] The house we lived in, 106 South
Street.

The foundation had a little bit of lean
too, little bit. And my mother said,

don't you ever be ashamed to
bring anybody to your home.

Don't be ashamed of that, inside clean,
I mean immaculate.

[Michelle] He grew up
with a very strong message

that he could be and
do whatever he wanted.

[Wayne] My mother, she'd go downtown
and come home with surprises

and a bunch of wrapped
packages like blocks of clay.

Then we start doing things
with it on the kitchen table.

The kitchen table was round.

[gentle music]

And that roundness, it
represented the planet to us.

[woman singing throughout]

[Michelle] Within this stark ironbound
land of steel and bricks,

Wayne's mother almost cultivated
he and Alan's creativity,

almost like hot house flowers.

[Wayne] Next to our house was a vacant
lot.

We couldn't wait till school
without to go in that lot.

It became whatever you wanted it to be.
And that lot became Sahara Desert.

It became Mars.

We did a lot of play acting,
inventing crises that we would win over.

Let's tackle something big.

[upbeat music]

[Wayne] My father would turn on
the radio every evening.

[Martin] Hello everybody,
this is Martin Block.

His name was Martin Block.

Said, I'm gonna play
something different tonight

and then let me know what you think.

[Wayne] It's a new music called Bebop.

[bebop music]

I'm not thinking about being music,
I'm hearing this stuff.

What is that, what's going on?

Sort of brought back stuff
I heard in movies too.

[bebop music continues]

[Michelle] He would go see films
with his brother Alan,

and that night when they
were supposed to be asleep,

they would sit up and play
a game called Say About.

And they would try to
remember as much of the film

as they could, the dialogue,
the cinematography,

and especially the music.

They would sing back to each other

as much of the score
as they could remember.

And Wayne said that this
would go on for hours.

[animal howling]

[Michelle] Film scenes came to be linked
very closely to emotions for him.

Listen to them, children of the night,

[Dracula] what music they make.

[audience clapping]

[upbeat music]

[Wayne] When I was eight years old,
I started to draw comic figures

outta comic books using tracing paper.

And to me, the comic book is like
adversity. It's overcoming something.

Talks about becoming something.

[Wayne] What would you do if you were in a
crisis?

What are they gonna do?

That's the ride.

[Neil] Oh my God, what is this, dated
1949?

1949, I saw a movie
called "Rocket Ship XM".

[Announcer] Three, two, one, zero.

[rocket whirring]

- Did you draw these?
- Yeah.

This is a comic book, with Rocket Ships.

[Wayne] Yes.

[Neil] How old were you?

[Wayne] I was 15.

This is out of control.

Yes and that, and 15...

Wayne, no, Wayne.

[Wayne] You start looking at.

Wayne.

Anatomy...

[Neil] Wayne.

Of Girls.

[Neil] 'Cause you have to draw them.

[all laughing]

[Neil] Yeah, there's some curvy linear
shapes in here I'm noticing.

I don't even know what to say. I just have
to say your name. Wayne.

[upbeat music]

[Wayne] And my father brought
over a friend and he said,

let me show you something.

He took away the tracing paper.

He took my hand and guided
my hand in a certain way.

He said, okay, try that by yourself.

And I tried to draw like
Superman or something like that

without the tracing
paper, and it came easy.

The teacher I had said
it's a school contest.

And I did a painting
called "The Football Game"

in watercolor, got first prize.

[Wayne] That's when they decided between
my mother

and the school teachers
that I should apply

for Arts High School after grammar school.

[Nat] There wasn't another high
school in the Newark area

that could compare with Arts High.
That was a special school for the arts.

[Wayne] In my second year, I
started cutting classes.

I started going to the movies.

I would go to the movie,
then go to a class and I'd forge notes,

like some fictitious doctor,
Wayne cannot make it,

he could not make it
to class today because,

I walked past the school
and then there's the Adams Theater.

And I'd go in there and they
had like two motion pictures

"The Last Day's of Pompeii" and "She".

[dramatic music]

[people screaming]

[Wayne] And then there's a band that
rolls up from the floor,

one time it was Dizzy Gillespie and Stan
Canton,

two big bands on one stage
together.

And all the trumpets were all together
and they were all playing,

they were playing something
called Peanut Vendor.

[upbeat music]

And then they caught me.

[Wayne] They call me on the Inter
intercom,

Wayne Shorter report to the

Vice Principal's Office
immediately, if not sooner.

[Wayne] I went down there
and I'm standing there.

I'm immaculately dressed every day.

And they never thought that
someone like, I'm quiet, nice,

you know, they said, but wait a minute,

before we found out what
to do, where did you go?

I said, to the movie, the theater.

And they said, you like the
stage shows and all that?

Yeah.

[Wayne] So the vice principal,

she got on the phone and
called Achilles D'amico,

who was the head of the music department,

the instrumental music.

He came in there and she said,

we're gonna put Wayne in your
class and see what happens.

[upbeat music]

And I went in his class
and that's the same time I was listening

to stuff on the radio,
Charlie Parker and all that.

Achilles had three records
on his desk and he said,

music is gonna go in three directions.

And the first one he lifted
up was a record by from Peru.

[upbeat music]

[Wayne] Second record was "The Rite
of Spring" by Igor Stravinsky.

[dramatic music]

The third one was record
by Charlie Parker.

[jazz music]

[Wayne] I got a clarinet with the
help of my grandmother

and my mother, for one year
I took clarinet lessons.

Then he said, okay, we're gonna move you
on to tenor saxophone.

I just started studying.

[Wayne] I had a final exam with the head
of Vocal and Choral and piano.

And a lot of the kids there
had been studying music

since they were six years old.

And she said, bring your paper and brought
the paper to her desk.

And you have to leave class.

I'm walking toward the door,
she said, just a minute.

She held the paper up and she said, class,
this is a perfect exam paper.

I want you to think about this.

[gentle music]

[Wayne] As I'm walking down the hall,

it was something I was
mulling over in my mind.

What does this mean?

What is that?

It's like euphoria without the words.

You better not ignore this.

[gentle music throughout]

I saw these pictures of Charlie Parker,
Miles Davis in magazines,

these are the new guys,
new this and everything.

I can realize now that they were the new
Superman and Captain Marvel.

[Wayne] They were playing something
that went against the grain

of what was being sold, pop music, pop.

Still do.

[jazz music]

[Wayne] So Bebop became a cause

and the social implication became a cause.
Let's fight for this.

And how you gonna fight for it,
by finding out what it's about.

[bell ringing]

[Wayne] That was the beginning of
this band called "The Group".

[upbeat music]

We called ourselves The
Group, we had nine players.

And then the other man
that played regularly

at dances was Nat Phipps.

[Nat] When I first met Wayne,

Wayne was already playing
way beyond where we were.

[Nat] We were playing the conventional
stuff,

the songs that were
actually from the swing era

of the thirties and early
forties for dancing.

Wayne and those guys were playing tunes
that were for getting away

from the dance concept and talking about
jazz as an art form.

We were trying to introduce
this new music called Bebop.

[bebop music]

We had no band stands,
no music that we read.

And my brother would play with gloves on
and we would wrinkle our clothes

because we thought the new music bebop
had a lot to do with being wrinkled too.

They were a little, we used to call it
a little outside, little strange.

My brother had on his saxophone case, Doc
Strange. And on my case I had Mr. Weird,

we used to wear a dress hat
and cut the rim to a point

where we wore stingy brim hat.

And we wear like an overcoat

almost down to the ground,
so when you walked,

it looked like you're
floating, with no hands.

And the hat was down around your ears.

So all you would see no eyebrows,
just eyes in the shadow,

you know? And like we look we are going
someplace no one else could go.

[Michelle] Two brothers who were almost
twin-like

in their sort of level
of secret communication,

in their level of code.

[Nat] They'd say a half of
a sentence or something. You know.

You just assume that they're communicating
between the two of them.

And when they were finished,
you went on with your conversation

and it got back to quotes, normal.

[Wayne] My brother's non-conformity.

He would say why, they
wanted to see his picture

before he went to Howard University.

He said, why they wanna
see my picture, why,

my mother said they wanna see how light
and how dark you are,

[Wayne] that what's going on then.

[Nat] What goes way back to sl*very time
because the light skin n*gro

was a byproduct of a white
male and a black female.

So that child would be in better position
because of the color of the skin,

but also reflective of the fact
that there is white blood there.

[Wayne] The lighter you are,
the more opportunities,

the more you could get
into lucrative jobs.

My mother and father knew
that there was segregation

going across the board.
Segregation that hit everybody.

My mother said that
color is a false premise

for validating behavior,
right or wrong, that's a false premise.

The only color that
triggers behavior is green.

[Michelle] His parents would often point
out

white people who were poorer than them.

Then his mother would say, see, race does
not dictate where you are in life.

So never use it as an excuse.

[Wayne] You don't ask nobody for nothing.
You learn to be self-sufficient.

You don't be asking nobody for nothing.

I would rather walk home in the rain
than ask somebody for taxi cab money.

'Cause I'm out of it.
You know why?

I always thought there was
a creative way to get there.

[gentle music]

[Wayne] I walked into the library.

I was 12, I think I stopped at this book.

They said, "The Water Babies."
I took that out, once upon a time

there was a boy named Tom.

He's a chimney sweep.
He had a very domineering master.

Master told Tom, I want
you to clean this chimney

and you better able to clean it well.

And he fell through the chimney.

[boy screaming]

And he found himself in the
bedroom of a little girl.

And he screamed and the
little girl was asleep

and she woke up and saw
him and she screamed,

there's a window that he ground floor

out of the window and he's running

and there's a lake there
and he falls into the lake.

He doesn't know how to
swim and he's drowning

and he's going down in the water.
He felt his little hands grab him,

his wrists and arms and
he feels behind his ears

something changing.
He's growing gills, like fish.

[Wayne] He's shrinking, he comes not too
small, but he becomes a water baby.

And all these other pans,
they're water babies around him.

Same thing happens to the girl.

So I'm 12. I'm getting interested
in what goes on with the boy and the girl,

the romance, at the end of
the book, he's in a river.

The river leads to the
sea and he wants to go see

what that is, what the sea is about.

[Wayne] The Water Baby is about what is
life.

It's the great adventure

I think as a child within a fairytale
story is the DNA of the whole universe.

[gentle music]

[Wayne] Well, I went to school, but the
schoolyard

was filled with the Wild One motorcycles.

[phone ringing]

Hello?

[Wayne] If you call the girl for a
date and she lived across town,

they would ask, how are
you getting to my house?

And I fell right into the trap.

Well, I take the three Bergen
bus into the 25 Springfield

and he say, you still walking?

♪ Hold back the dawn ♪

♪ Stop all the clocks ♪

♪ I just got the news that
my baby wants to rock ♪

[Wayne] If I did have a date, take
somebody to the movie,

and take them home, I would
have a shake their hand.

Well so long

♪ Rock and roll all night long ♪

They thought that was weird.

♪ And Buck with daddy all night long ♪

♪ All she wants to do is rock ♪

[Wayne] And when I went to a party, I
talk about let's go to Mars.

Let's universe and they want to dance.
Have a good time say, he's weird.

♪ Rock and roll all night long ♪

Graduated from high school.
I went to work in the factory for a year.

A Singer sewing machine factory.
My father worked there.

A lot of people's fathers worked there.
I was looking at the sewing machine,

becoming sewing machine from this part,

that part, that part that
got bigger and bigger.

And each worker on each
part stays where they are.

That's my little poem to myself.

The worker stays still, but the machine
becomes more, I said, I wanna become more.

So I went and applied for
the entrance exam at the NYU.

[upbeat music]

[Michelle] Were no jazz studies
programs in the fifties.

He went to NYU and he studied
classical composition.

He would sometimes go to jam sessions

at a place in Newark called Lloyd's Manor.

[Nat] And it was not unusual
for the local musicians.

Those that felt comfortable
enough to wanna get in

and sit in with these celebrities.

[Michelle] One night, a great bebop
saxophonist, Sonny Stitt came.

Wayne got up there very calmly,
but you know, unassuming, waiting.

[Wayne] And what Sonny
did was he started playing

in different keys that I had not learned.

[Nat] Wayne got it there and started
playing

and Sonny was like this
and Wayne's playing

and he start looking at
him and it was obvious.

They were saying, oh
hell, where's this kid?

[upbeat music]

[Michelle] And people heard about that and
I think

that's where the Newark
Flash Legend started.

[Nat] We were always trying to
stick Wayne on all of them.

Whoever it was, say Wayne so and so,
let's go down there and get him.

We gonna get Wayne to go up there and burn
them up. As they said.

[Wayne] This is because I was
fast that translated

to Fast Fingers, eh,
here comes Fast Fingers.

[Sonny] There was top class
musician coming from Newark.

So I think that's one of the first times
I remember hearing about Wayne.

[jazz music]

[Wayne] I had my draft notice in my back
pocket.

I said, I'm gonna spend
my last night in Freedom,

just listen to guys play.

And Max Roach was playing
Max Roach drummer.

He came down and he said, you're
in the Newark Flash, right?

I said, what do you mean?

And they said, bring your horn in.

And I went up on the bandstand

and a lot of other musicians, they said,

it's a new guy named Coltrane
that Miles might get,

Dizzy Gillespie coming to town.
And somebody outside was saying,

Miles Davis is looking for
somebody named Cannonball.

So all of this stuff is going
on and I'm going in the Army.

[Wayne] When I was just about ready to get
discharged from the Army, I got a call.

[piano music]

[Michelle] He had been asked by Horace
Silver,

the great band leader to join his band.

He only played a handful of dates,
but it had a lasting legacy.

[smooth jazz plays]

[Michelle] Horace Silver gave Wayne a
very important piece of advice.

You are a brilliant composer.

Make sure that you take care
of your publishing rights.

Other musicians died almost penniless
because they didn't have this advice.

They put their trust in the wrong people.

[wind whirring]

[jazz music throughout]

[Nat] Around that time,
just about every major jazz group

in the country lived in New York.

[Wayne] You felt the newness going
on, people who are underage,

they're sitting there in their
prom dresses, and their dates,

listening to bebop, new music
for the first time, just sitting listening

and not dancing.

[upbeat music throughout]

[Michelle] Bird Land was the place to go
and it was the place to be seen.

[Michelle] You might see the prize
fighter, Sugar Ray Robinson,

the actor, Sidney Poitier,

and Wayne had a chance to
watch the way these people

comported themselves with
such elegance and dignity.

Wayne has described it
as the swift people,

the people who were poised, proud.

[Jimmy] We all had a uniform.
The jeans were for working,

which you wore when you were automobile
mechanic like my father.

It was a generation of pride

that I know we got
something that's different.

It becomes a music that's identified
with being sophisticated,

being young, male and hip.

[upbeat music]

[Wayne] What was actually hip was
when someone asked me for money

and he asked me, say,
can you lend me a dollar?

And I say, all I have is a quarter.
He would swaying when he said, he said,

well won't you gimme some parts of that?

[upbeat music]

[Wayne] We were playing in Canada,
but the Canadian exposition,

they call it, Sarah Vaughn,
I think Count Bates's Band was there,

and the Jazz Messengers,

they had these continental cut suits.

[jazz music]

[Wayne] I remember they were playing
something called Evidence,

something that the Loneliest Month wrote.

It's like bump

Dun. Dun dun. Dun. Dun. Dun.

[audience clapping]

[upbeat music]

That's the future.
That's the future right there.

[Don] Kirk Blake, he's throwing in
Backbeats.

You couldn't do that at Minton's
and not get tossed off the bandstand man,

that was the Bertha hard
bob that changed everything.

[Jason] There was often a direct
attempt by musicians

to evade the critical gaze of the white
listener, the white critic.

Thelonious Monk,
he was asked, what is jazz?

Monk's response was, it's about freedom,
more than that is complicated.

Somebody asked, why do you
write such complicated music?

And Monk's response was,
I write music that way

so white people can't understand it,
that way they won't be able to steal it.

[Michelle] Lee Morgan, the great trumpet
player,

he was a big fan of Wayne's
and they were friends.

Lee Morgan was like a son to Art Blakey.

So he would basically
do anything Lee asked.

[Wayne] Lee Morgan, he came over
and he said, hey Wayne,

you want to be with The Messengers?
I said, yeah.

[drum banging]

When you're 21, you think
you can rule the world.

[upbeat drumming]

[Hal] The band would play a night in
Tunisia,

when they would play the intro,

which was about eight minutes of drums,
everybody else in the band

had to pick up a percussion instrument.

Wayne would usually pick up the wooden
claves. So Wayne would just go

dum dum dum. Dum dum.

I remember just kind of
looking at this guy saying,

damn, give this guy a drink
or something, you know?

But then when he would play,
there was the transformation

and it was like, whoa, oh, check this out.

[upbeat music]

[Hal] That fiery nature of him
would come outta nowhere.

The day he joined, as
far as I'm concerned,

He was the best musician in the band.
And they were all excellent musicians.

[Reggie] Wayne was a person who had
done his homework so well.

So you mentioned the name,

Wayne could play a phrase
to sound just like Perez.

He could play a phrase
to sound just like John.

He could play a phrase
to sound just like Bird,

but that's the kind of
homework that he had done.

[audience clapping]

[Wayne] 26 Years old, I
thought I was a superman.

And when we took an
intermission, we'd get like food,

eat and I drank.

I said, give me a double cognac, triple.

We would eat and go up and and get some
more to drink and then play.

You're playing and you perspire.

They would say the old guys, oh, most of
it's coming out, you gonna sweat that out.

I remember one time in
Birdland we were playing

and people were talking and talking
and talking and everything like that.

Art Blakey stopped the band.

And these people were talking

and then glasses clinking and everything.

[people chattering]

And Art got up into the
microphone, he said,

Excuse me gentlemen,
we are trying to do something up here

and if you don't wanna hear what we're
trying to do, get the hell out.

He said, y'all don't do
that sh*t at Carnegie Hall.

The place got quiet.

[Reggie] We ere working with a
person like Art Blakey

who was kind of institution at that time.

[symbols crashing]

[Wayne] Art was the hell of a showman.

He did things with the drums.

He would play a sound that
sounded like a tsunami coming,

a drum roll, we call it a crush roll.

It seemed like he's gonna
fly off the seat.

[Announcer] This
time, we'd like to bring

to the front our
saxophonist, Wayne Shorter.

[audience clapping]

[Wayne playing saxophone]

[Reggie] One thing about Art and Wayne,

they had some kind of
relationship where Art,

even though he was very
dogmatic and wanted things

to be his way with every
beat and every chorus,

Wayne was always in the forefront.

And Art always wanted him and allowed him
to be in the forefront.

But I would recognize Art looking at Wayne

and realizing that there
was something special here,

like there's only so much
you can tell this person

because he's got his own ideas.

[audience cheers]

[Michelle] He discovered
that Wayne had a secret weapon.

And what's really
remarkable is how quickly

he became the resident composer
for Art Blakey's jazz messengers.

[Wayne] And he said, when you have a band,
make sure you got somebody who can write.

[Michelle] The band began playing his
compositions

every night, which was unusual.

[Reggie] Wayne is so slick with the pen.

Almost every composition
that he did was a favorite.

[Curtis] I took music very serious
from that moment on.

I wanted to be like him as well.
Wanted to likeness my expressions

of what I had to say musically,

want people to be aware of
that's where I'm coming from.

And he's the one that helped
me frame my narrative.

[smooth jazz music]

[Hal] Wayne loved Lester Young.

Lester actually was
more like Wayne perhaps

than most musicians
because Lester was a loner.

Lester had his own
idiosyncratic way of speaking.

And when Lester died in 1959,

Wayne wrote the tune, Lester's Left Town.

[upbeat music]

[Hal] Lester had a kind of a
mincing way of walking

that Wayne captured just in the music.

Wayne Shorter didn't write
Diddies, Wayne Shorter composed.

[Hal] So when you say, well, what
was different about his songs?

When you listen, you hear
the difference immediately.

I absolutely believe there's
thought to every note.

And they weren't borrowed.

Probably 40% of the jazz
compositions were really based

on popular tunes, Wayne didn't do that,
Wayne wrote his own changes.

[Bob] They were doing different
things harmonically.

So he was someone who kind of seized you
when you heard him play.

[Michelle] The jazz messengers had
such a clear sense of mission.

They saw themselves as
having this very high calling

to go out on the road and through jazz,
spread this message of globalism,

unity and Black pride.

[Wayne] Social justice, equality,
the whole thing to fight freedom.

And Bebop was going against the grain
of what people felt comfortable about.

[upbeat music]

[people shouting]

[Michelle] Wayne began traveling overseas
and at the time,

people weren't traveling abroad a lot.

[Wayne] When we went to France one time,
we're presented with the steak tartar,

someone in the band, he said, man,
I really miss those Subway sandwiches

we have in Philadelphia.

And Art would say, you don't
come all the way to Paris,

France talking about some Subways.

You come here to get some culture, man.

You don't bring your little neighborhood
mind to a new place.

You can keep your mind
open until you can absorb

and pick and choose and
keep your mouth shut,

unless you're gonna speak French.

[Reporter] Authorities in Mississippi
are still without any meaningful clue

as to where the whereabouts of
three civil rights volunteers

who have been missing for one week.

[g*n shot]

[man] There's a lot
of anger in those times

that came somewhere between Selma
and the passing of the Civil Rights bill.

[people shouting]

[man] It was a tumultuous time.

[upbeat music]

[man] I think Free For All,
that could be people playing a whole lot

or it could be freedom for all.
Which is, I think how he meant it.

[Bob] If Blakey's band, for instance,

performed in certain
parts of this country,

they might be playing in a club in a hotel
and they couldn't stay in the same hotel.

[Greg] Before there was black
power movement and black arts

and all those kinds of things,

people who were working in the
performing arts we're living

a kind of dual reality

'cause they were much more independent.
They were troubadours, they traveled.

So no matter what you ran
into in a segregated America,

you were with just some
of the funniest, hippest,

cerebral people you'd want to meet.

There was an escape route out

of American apartheid
through their talent.

[Michelle] The jazz messengers were the
first modern jazz group to be invited

to Japan in the early sixties.

They were met by hundreds
of girls who were screaming,

much in the manner that American
girls greeted the Beatles.

[Curtis] This plane descended, and the
kids there

with flowers all over the airport.
Honest, honest, I kid you not.

[Bob] They were like celebrities.
They were like rock stars.

[Hal] They had photos of
everybody in the band.

Everybody knew everything about them.

And by this time, Wayne Shorter
had a acquired standard.

[Francis] They even sold Wayne Shorter
jackets.

[Curtis] We were standing there
and proud to be decent Black men.

We all had the same haircut with the part
in their hair the whole bit.

We became an entity.

[upbeat jazz music throughout]

And we rose to another level.

[Wayne] When we travel a lot,
I felt like every place,

that's where we lived.
And the hotel room, that's home.

And I never had girlfriends
or something like that,

I observed a lot of guys couldn't wait
to get to Europe to find a girlfriend.

[gentle music]

[Wayne] Art Blakey would say things like
this,

anybody who comes in the
club with a girlfriend

who's not a fox, they're gonna get docked,
gonna get money taken outta your salary,

when you come into the club with a date,
something like that,

she's got to be fine,
gentlemen, this is a business.

[Nat] Were still
writing for the jazz messengers.

But at the same time,
concurrent with that,

Wayne was doing the startling series
of recordings for Blue Note.

[Curtis] Wayne was writing one
song at least a week.

He'd have us come by his
room after a job and he said,

come to my room and hear
this sound that I just wrote.

[Herbie] When I first heard Wayne,
I remember it was the album,

I think it was called Wayne Shorter.

It just a big picture of
his face on the cover.

But I listened to it,
Wayne had his own sound.

He already had his own sound
ever since I can remember.

[Herbie] Nobody sounded like Wayne.

[upbeat music]

[Bob] "Night Dreamer",
which is his first Blue Knot album.

He expresses his philosophy
so well in the liner notes

there's a piece called "Armageddon".

He said "The point is not
beware, it's be aware".

[Reggie] It was the earlier compositions.

They were great when he did
them, but he grew from there.

From step to step.

[Wayne] We're playing a matinee
from New York City.

Somebody tapped me on the shoulder.

I turned around this John Coltrane.

He said, you're playing all
over the horn like I do.

You exploring like I
do, come up to my house.

[Wayne] He invited me to his house.

[bird chirping]

[Reggie] He used to go by John's house
on hundred third and Amsterdam.

And during that era, he
and John were very close.

You'd hear them practicing
all hours of day and night

for hours and hours.

[Wayne] He had a piano and he would crush
the lower part of the piano.

And you get like you call a tone cluster.

[Wayne grunting]

[dramatic music]

Like an expl*si*n, and he would ask me,
see what you can find.

No matter what sound you
hear, try to find the face,

a face, find the person, find the story.

[Wayne] And we started talking about the
tone as a way of taking you places.

[upbeat music]

[Don] Speak No Evil is the best
album in the Blue Note Catalog.

That's the crown jewel.

Not a wasted note on the album.

It's a beautiful album,
it's a perfect album.

[Don] Herbie Hancock, even at
the tender age of 22,

he still knew more about
harmony than anybody else.

[upbeat music]

[Don] But then it was Wayne
standing on their shoulders

and I wasn't hearing notes, I wasn't
hearing scales. It was conversational.

[Don] He rode on the energy these guys,

and the vision I had
when I closed my eyes,

I pictured Wayne walking down the street

and like adversity coming his way.

He was ducking and diving and
staying cool the whole time.

He, it's grooving,

this is a universal message
that permeates your being,

permeates your soul.

And he's got another 50 songs
that can do that for you.

[Wayne] I met my first
wife when we working Chicago.

[Michelle] Wayne has
described it as their first date,

very quickly became his first marriage.

She was very mysterious to him.

I'm not sure she was a
mystery he ever solved.

[Wayne] She has a twin sister, you know,

and they would show me
pictures of themselves

behind the barbed wire fence.

It was actually American concentration
camp for American Japanese.

[sad music]

[Michelle] Wayne had had very little
experience with women.

He was very shy when he met Teruko.

And I think it was just
kind of a whirlwind.

And very soon after they met,

their daughter, Miyako was born.

[gentle music]

[Wayne] Being a father and being a
musician

was still like a state of becoming

and like to be all of a sudden
that that doesn't happen.

It's always becoming.

[Herbie] When he was married to
Teruko, Teruko was...

was not happy.

[Wayne] It takes a working partnership

to maintain marriage and a home.

But the marriage in the
home is not in the vacuum.

It's like maintaining
in the sense the world.

[Curtis] He had gone through a couple
experiences

that I know and I happened to be with him

in his room in Philadelphia,
but I knew he was going through a thing

and my spirit and my heart
was straight there with where he was.

[Herbie] They were breaking up.

And Wayne is very much a family man.

He's very loyal and it was
really eating at his heart.

[Wayne] Had a bubble the way I
thought life was supposed to be.

And then when we separated in
the divorce, it's like bam.

[Kathy] Teruko needed
to leave at that point

and take care of whatever it was
that she needed to fulfill in her life.

And so that left Wayne
to take care of Miyako.

That must have been
unbelievably challenging

being a musician on the road all the time.

[gentle jazz music thoughout]

[Marcus] I had asked him, Wayne,
what's the most important tool?

And he said, your imagination, right?

And I was telling Wayne
that I kept that with me,

but also as I thought about it,

equally as important as your imagination

is your fearlessness to
respect your imagination.

[Terence] Art Blakey had the best comment
about him I've ever heard,

Art Blakey used to say he has
the imagination of a child,

which I find to be true
because his imagination is limitless.

He's a guy who is not
bound by tradition at all.

[Art] Just remember come hell or high
water, you gotta stay out there.

You past the point of no return.

You are a leader but not the follower,

he just joined the band, he's playin, cats
comin' down

So they left, they was
coming out, said Jesus, Wayne Shorter man

Gee me... he's playin' but geez, he sound
like scrambled eggs.

So John Coltrane train
walking up behind him says,

it's the way he scrambles those eggs.

[Wayne] He himself used to say a
jazz messenger's tradition

is known for creating band leaders.

You must get ready to start your own band.

[Marcus] When I first went to Miles's
house,

he kept a composition of
Wayne's and Wayne's handwriting.

He kept it on the piano,

it was a part of the furniture,
you know what I mean?

And for that to be what Miles decided

to put up is really important.

[phone ringing]

Hello?

He's hitting the guitar.

Guitar is a m*therf*cker, ain't it?

Miles, you wanna join my band?

As I just got with The Messengers.

Nobody likes a Benedict Arnold.

I know what you mean.

When you're ready, let me know, click.

[upbeat music]

[Herbie] It was about 1963 after we were
secure

in the fact that we were in Miles's band,

Wayne's name came up when
Tony and I felt that Wayne fit

that direction that we were moving in.
Both he and I almost conspired

to have Wayne be in Miles Davis' band.

And I found out later that Miles
had been trying to get Wayne too.

[Bob] Miles Davis had Herbie Hancock,
Ron Carter, Tony Williams.

But there were still just recycling things
Miles Davis had already done.

Then about another year went by

and while we were playing around New York,

Lee Morgan standing next
to me on the bandstand

and music's going on, Art's playing drums.

Hey, Wayne, Miles is in the house

and they say he's checking you out.

[Wayne] We had a rehearsal with Art
Blakey, the phone rings at the rehearsal.

[phone ringing]

And Lee picks up the
phone and says real loud,

it's Miles and Art is sitting
right there on the drums.

And Miles said, are you ready?
I said, yeah.

He said, well, come on, Art,

he's playing the drums and
he's looking over there.

I'm standing over here,

he's trying to steal my saxophone player.

[Hal] And Blakey got on the phone

and threatened to break six or seven
crucial bones in Miles's body.

Tony and I were like, woo,

this is gonna be incredible, Wayne's gonna
be with us. This is great.

[Wayne] He gave me the address of his
tailor who lived down the street from him.

He said, go down to
Victor's, he'll fix you up.

[audience clapping]

[Wayne] We played that evening.

[upbeat music]

[Herbie] And it was exactly what
we had hoped and more.

[Santana] Most people, when they play
fast, it gets really shallow.

Very few can play extremely
fast, profoundly deep.

[Santana] I know that Miles had eyes for
Wayne

the same way that he
had eyes for Coltrane.

[upbeat music continues]

[audience cheering]

[phone ringing]

[Wayne] It was Miles, we recording Monday.

That must mean he likes, he digs it.

He likes what he hears,

went in the studio, then he said,
you got some music?

I said, yeah.

And the first piece of
music was titled ESP.

He looked at it and he
said, let's try this.

[upbeat music]

[Wayne] And it became the title of the
album.

And from that day on, whenever
he asked me to record,

he would end by saying,

I'll see you in the
studio and bring the book.

[Herbie] It was like a hand and a glove,
it had that reach toward new territory

that we were looking for.

[upbeat music]

[Bob] From the album ESP,

you really see the music
moving somewhere else than it had been.

[Wallace] The meeting of Miles Davis
with a prolific composer,

and Trane was a great composer too.

He wasn't as prolific
melodically as Wayne Shorter.

When Wayne Shorter came in,

they gave Miles so much to work with.

Miles was the man, his
name was under Marquee.

But we all knew that Wayne Shorter
was writing these amazing compositions.

[Bob] Wayne Shorter took Miles
Davis out of a rut he was in,

his presence provided a tipping point

that also allowed Herby and Ron and Tony

to express themselves in
terms of writing for Miles.

[upbeat music]

[Michelle] Wayne talks about
how standing next to Miles

up on stage, you wanted to go to the gym.

And he said it took a lot of
work for him to feel confident.

[Herbie] Miles, he cared about
that sartorial nature

of the way he was dressed
and he was always sharp.

[Michelle] In Black
urban culture in the 1960s,

style was more than an
external mode of dress.

Style was an indication of a man's soul.

Style was not just ornamentation,
style was spirit itself.

This the early sixties,
and so even though things were changing,

the bands were still in a
fairly conservative mode

in which they all wear not only suits,
but the same suit quite often.

[Herbie] Miles bought jackets for
us, kind of this uniform.

We hated this uniform,
it was awful, right?

And they had some patch, right?
It was not cool at all.

[Wayne] Miles ill say, if you can't play
music

that brings in ladies.

He had another word, B I T C H,
bringing the b*tches,

get another profession.

[Michelle] Miles' musicians
would tell stories of him

just hanging out in his
hotel room all the time.

In fact, one time Miles sent Ron

to find out what Wayne
did in his hotel room

all the time, it was a mystery.

[Wayne] What does Wayne do during the
daytime?

What does he do during the day?

Cause every time he turned around,
it has a piece of music to play.

Wayne was, to me at the time, was weird,

intriguing, interesting,
but a little weird.

I had said, I gotta find out

if he's a genius or if he's just crazy.

I remember going to his room,

hanging out and we talked
and talked and I began

to understand little games
almost that were played

with language, with modes of thinking.
And it was almost like a puzzle.

It took hours for me to
realize that not only

was Wayne a genius, but he
thought everybody else was too.

[upbeat music]

[Ron] Wayne, when we traveled,
he found a way to get to this bookstore

in whatever airport we
were and look for books.

And my job was quietly to
limit the amount of books

that Wayne bought, 'cause
the more he bought,

the more these guys had to carry.

[upbeat drumming]

[Herbie] Before we were to play a gig
at the Plugged Nickel in Chicago,

having a conversation with Tony Williams,
Tony said, it's getting too easy.

I've gotta play things
that are unexpected.

And Tony called it anti music.

[drums continue]

[Herbie] Okay, I'm gonna play anti music
too.

One of us mentioned it to Wayne.
He didn't say a whole lot

and Ron Carter understood
and agreed to it.

When we were walking into the club,

we noticed there were a bunch
of tape recorders around

because the record label
was gonna record us

and we were never told
anything about that.

So I'm thinking, oh wait a minute,
how we gonna do this anti music,

which is gonna sound awful at first.

But Tony said, I'm gonna stick to my g*ns.

I said, okay Tony, I'm
gonna stick to my g*ns.

I'm still gonna do anti music.
But we expected it to sound terrible

and nobody said anything to Miles.

[trumpet plays]

They did the opposite type, things would
build up and instead of coming down

on next week with a big
crash, it would be...

empty,

or it would be just the
symbol without the bass drum.

[Herbie] It's a method of throwing
something

at each other just so
we can break our habits.

[upbeat music]

Even though it was strange and wrong,

that was a kind of purity.

It was a precursor for things to come.

[Michelle] It changed the style
of the Miles Davis quintet.

From there on out, they
performed in this looser style.

[gentle music]

[Lenny] He explained how he came up
with the baseline to "Footprints".

The baseline was like
a giant taking steps.

[Lenny] So where you go do, do,
do, do, and the last step,

you don't step because do, do, do, do,
dee.

[Wayne] I recorded it first on my own.
I had a Blue Note recording contract.

Miles heard it, wanted to play it.

[man 2] What's this called?

[Wayne] With Force.
Footprints.

[man 2] Footprints?

Okay this is, uh, Woodprints, uh, take
one.

[Wayne] Foot.

[man 2] Oh excuse me, Footprints.

[upbeat music]

[Wayne] You got it?

[Miles] No, not yet, 'cause I don't know
the melody.

You want me to play that
all the way through?

[Wayne] I want you to play
it as an introduction.

[Miles] Right

And he just started playing it.
He go.

[upbeat music]

[Wayne] The music has come out of a
moment.

All of us had room.

[Herbie] Miles pretty much changed
everybody's compositions.

Miles never had to change
any of Wayne's compositions.

They were always perfect for the band.

[Michelle] The life of a
jazz musician in the sixties

very much took place in clubs

and in between sets, what did you do?
You drink.

Everyone drank at that time,

[Michelle] Wayne was on tour with
Miles and his parents

drove to Philadelphia to
see the quintet perform,

[Michelle] On their way home to New
Jersey, there was a car accident.

[trumpet plays]

His father was k*lled immediately.

[Michelle] After Wayne's father's death,

Wayne began hanging out late
at night with Miles at the bar.

They would just drown their
sorrows

And Miles would say, do you wanna go back
to an empty hotel room?

Neither do I.
Let's stay here and drink.

[Wayne] I asked my mother, what did you
like about my father when you met?

She said, I liked the way he walked.

I asked her, what do you mean?

She said, he always looked
like he was walking uphill.

He walked like he was going somewhere.

I felt I knew what she meant.

[Herbie] We were living
in a time of a lot of unrest

with civil rights, with the Vietnam w*r.

[people chattering]

[upbeat music]

[Sonny] Tremulous times, disorder.

[g*n shot]

[Ron] We were all affected by the bombing
in Birmingham, for example,

we were aware of being
asked for identification.

We went to a nice
restaurant or a nice hotel.

We never talked about it as a group.
We never discussed our feelings

in terms of taking an overt stand
necessarily.

[Wallace] This music presented an
awareness.

[drums playing]

[Michelle] If you look at Miles Davis,
he was the embodiment of Black pride.

One time a white photographer
came backstage with Miles

and started snapping
photos without permission.

Wayne said that Miles knocked
the camera down and said,

you think you can come back here
and take photos just 'cause you're white?

[Michelle] Then another time a Black
photographer came backstage.

Miles knocked the camera
out of his hands and said,

you think you can come back here
and take photos just 'cause you're Black?

There was always this sense that reality
was a lot more complicated.

[Michelle] Reality was gray.

Wayne was always more interested

in making a political
statement through art.

[gentle music]

[Wayne] I met Anna Maria when we were
playing

with Miles at the Village Gate.

We came down from the first
set into the dressing room.

Maria said, this is my sister, Anna Maria.

[Maria] And that was like love at first
sight

and they just looked so good together.
They were made for each other.

[Michelle] She spoke her
mind from the beginning.

He said many times, Anna Maria had it all.

She was beautiful.

She was cultured, she
spoke many languages.

[Wayne] And we started talking about life
and taking things for granted.

Then I'm thinking, hey,
something special going on here.

[upbeat music]

[Maria] They have a
personality, very similar.

You know, Wayne knows everything,

studies and reads everything.
And Anna Maria was very intelligent too.

[Michelle] She could challenge Wayne,

and I think she really pushed him
and served us as a muse to him.

[Maria] She told me that she love him
and that she was gonna marry him.

That was the man for her.

[Michelle] Anna Maria got Wayne

hanging out on the upper West side

of Manhattan with this
whole crew of musicians

who were sort of loosely
associated with Miles.

[upbeat music]

They would often gather at Walter
and Maria Booker's apartment

for these late night jam sessions.

[Maria] My house was
open from one o'clock

in the afternoon to six
in the morning, every day.

[Michelle] Herbie Hancock
and his wife Gigi would be there.

Dave Holland would be there.

[Dave] Walter would be rewiring his stuff
and getting things going.

There'd be jam stations happening

and they'd go on all day and all night.

[Michelle] Chip Korea would be there.

These were the musicians
who were largely responsible

for helping Miles in his
evolution into a different sound.

[Wayne] Just around that time,

Miles started going into
b*tches Brew, that recording

showing where of rock and blues could go.

[upbeat trumpets]

With Miles, it was like
penetrating, thought provoking,

eye-opening and mind blowing,

made people change their
mind about something,

their behavior or it's decision making.

[Jason] Music has a specific function,

which is to quiet the mind

in order to make it susceptible
to divine influence.

We start to get a different
understanding of how space works

in Shorter's music and in Davis's music,

and in a certain sense,

space can also activate
and enliven the mind.

Wayne is trying to play less music

rather than more music and
trying to make it more open.

[Wayne] I asked Anna Maria, I
said, what does Feio mean?

She said, ugly beauty.

[Neil] There are these musical
compositions

hailed by experts that were
slightly beyond my perimeter.

[Neil] There it is in the background,
it's not in the background.

I'm cooking, I'm whatever.

And then one day it took
maybe several weeks,

I dropped the spatula because I was struck

by the space embedded between the notes.

[gentle music]

[Neil] It gave me a chance to
bring myself to the music.

It was a portal.

I can now be a part of the music.

Because you know what it did?

It tossed a moment back to
me, in this split second

or in this moment, come
fit into what we're doing.

That was a transformative morning for me.

[energizing music]

[Dave] One of
the first conversations

I had with Wayne was on a
plane and he said to me,

I wonder what happens
when you get to the end of the universe?