Forecast of Jazz
By Kyle MacMillan
When saxophonist Wayne Shorter died last year at 89, the jazz world lost one of the most innovative and influential voices of his generation. A few months shy of Shorter’s 75th birthday in 2008, then-New York Times critic Ben Ratliff called him “jazz’s greatest living small-group composer and a contender for greatest living improviser.” Hardly faint praise.
Given Shorter’s wide-ranging reach and impact, it is hardly surprising that two upcoming concerts as part of Ravinia’s Fall/Spring Series in Bennett Gordon Hall will pay tribute to the recently departed jazz legend. The eight-member Ravinia Jazz Mentors will raise their hats to Shorter on March 16, and vocalist Kurt Elling and Panamanian pianist Danilo Pérez, who played with the saxophonist for 20 years, will devote much of their May 3 program to his music.
“You cannot not hear mention of Shorter when you are talking jazz,” said Chicago saxophonist Pat Mallinger, who has served as Ravinia’s Lead Jazz Mentor since 2018. “He belongs up there with the greatest jazz composers ever, Duke Ellington and the best of them. And his saxophone playing is in another world.”
Shorter jumped to prominence when he joined Art Blakey’s acclaimed Jazz Messengers in 1959, and his career continued for more than five decades as he constantly evolved, trying new styles and crossing genres. He co-founded the fusion band Weather Report in 1970 and later worked with such giants in folk and rock music as Joni Mitchell, guitarist Carlos Santana, and the band Steely Dan.
“He was truly one of the great geniuses of our times,” said Pérez, “and a very generous human being who used his music and Buddhist practice to celebrate what he always called ‘the incomprehensible phenomenon known as life itself.’ ”
The Ravinia Jazz Mentors program was founded in 1995 with the guidance of famed pianist Ramsey Lewis and Penny Tyler, who together headed Ravinia’s jazz programming at the time, and former Chicago Public Schools music administrator William Johnson. Each year, eight of Chicago’s finest jazz musicians give school performances and masterclasses, as well as dedicate time to mentor an auditioned group of about 25 budding student musicians—the Ravinia Jazz Scholars—to develop their skills and prepare them for professional careers, whether as musicians or in other fields.
Pat Mallinger performing at the Green Mill (photo: Ken Carl)
Among the program’s founding mentors is Mallinger, a St. Paul, MN, native who migrated to Chicago in 1990 and has been a mainstay of the city’s jazz scene since. “I’ve cultivated a nice groove as a musician,” he said. He was a co-leader of Sabertooth, which performed every Saturday night at the legendary Green Mill jazz club in Chicago from 1992 through 2018, and he led a rotating showcase called Pat Mallinger’s Late Night Jazz Party in the same time slot for another two years.
At the program’s inception, the saxophonist believed in the Jazz Mentors’ mission, and he was impressed by the quality of professional musicians taking part. “It was a great opportunity,” he said, “and I was honored to be in that company.” Following in the footsteps of Willie Pickens, the internationally respected jazz pianist who served as the Lead Mentor until his death in 2017, Mallinger sets play lists, finds engagements for the student musicians, and performs other administrative duties.
Pat Mallinger taking in the Ravinia Jazz Scholars’ 2019 Jazz Showcase performance (photo: Patrick Gipson/Ravinia)
In the past, the Jazz Mentors only performed in conjunction with their teaching activities, but eight years ago, Ravinia asked the group to appear on its own under the festival’s auspices in the spring. Those concerts were paused coming out of the pandemic, and this March 16 performance will be the group’s first on the Bennett Gordon Hall series since, though they have also played a set or two on the Carousel Stage during the summer in combo with their Jazz Scholars. Appearing in addition to Mallinger will be Pharez Whitted, trumpet; Audrey Morrison, trombone; Bobby Broom, guitar; Richard Johnson, piano; Dennis Carroll, bass; Ernie Adams, drums, and Eric Hines, percussion.
The Ravinia Jazz Mentors at the Carousel Stage during the Jazz Scholars’ soundcheck (photo: Emily Walker/Ravinia)
Last year when the concert date was put on the schedule, Shorter’s death was very much on the group’s minds, Mallinger said, so a program spotlighting him seemed like an obvious choice. The Jazz Mentors already regularly perform several of Shorter’s best-known songs like This Is for Albert, which is from Art Blakey’s 1962 album Caravan, and they are adding other titles from the saxophonist’s considerable catalog. The final program will be solidified during rehearsals, with all the players having a say.
In 2000, Shorter established an acoustic quartet with Pérez, bassist John Patitucci, and drummer Brian Blade, and the group stayed together through 2018. In his 2023 Shorter obituary, New York Times critic Nate Chinen said these three younger musicians had grown up with Shorter’s tunes and could follow his “every twitch and prompt.” “The Wayne Shorter Quartet—by far Mr. Shorter’s longest-running band, and the one most garlanded with acclaim—set an imposing standard for formal elasticity and cohesive volatility, bringing avant-garde practice into the heart of the jazz mainstream,” wrote Chinen.
The Wayne Shorter Quartet—Danilo Pérez, Shorter, Brian Blade, and John Patitucci—at their final performance at the 2018 Panama Jazz Festival (photo: Berklee College of Music)
Given Pérez’s close association with Shorter, which continued for two years after the quartet dissolved, it only makes sense that Shorter’s music will be front and center when he pairs up with another jazz star, Kurt Elling. The veteran vocalist and Ravinia Jazz Advisor, who has no shortage of Chicago connections, has rung up a dazzling array of honors across his three-decade career, including three Prix du Jazz Vocal in France, 16 Grammy Award nominations (winning two) and 12 Jazz Journalists Awards for Male Vocalist of the Year.
Elling got to know Pérez in the 1990s during conversations following the renowned Panamanian pianist’s gigs at the Windy City’s Jazz Showcase, but they didn’t work together until 2019. They discovered an instant connection, and a year later, the two released a recording on the indie label Edition titled Secrets are the Best Stories that won the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album. It includes lyrics penned by Elling to Pérez originals and the music of such past masters as Shorter and bassist Jaco Pastorius, and settings of texts by the likes of Robert Bly, Toni Morrison, and Robert Pinsky. The two jazzmen had many conversations about the power of music and how they could use it address issues like racism and immigration. “We were talking about all that, and then the music reflected it,” Pérez said. “It was a very organic relationship.”
Danilo Pérez and Kurt Elling at a recording session for Secrets are the Best Stories (photo: Anna Webber)
The May 3 concert will feature selections from that album, but there will also be new material. “Expect the unexpected,” Pérez said. “It’s going to be fun.” An extensive tour that was scheduled after the album won the Grammy Award was ultimately canceled because of the pandemic, so the singer and pianist have only performed together a few times, including an engagement at New York’s famed jazz club Birdland late last year. After their Ravinia performance, the two are set for May 8–10 engagements in Austin, San Antonio, and Houston. “And we’re looking forward to finding more time,” Pérez said, “and perhaps making another recording. We’ll get to it. We want to continue this project.” ■
Kyle MacMillan served as classical music critic for the Denver Post from 2000 through 2011. He currently freelances in Chicago, writing for such publications and websites as the Chicago Sun-Times, Early Music America, Opera News, and Classical Voice of North America.