FAREWELL TO…
Wayne Shorter Born 1933 Saxophonist
A multi-award-winning player, composer and bandleader, Shorter was a key figure in shaping the soundworld of 20th-century jazz. While his own compositions have become standards of the repertoire, he will be remembered more for his electrifying, otherwordly improvised performances. Born in Newark, Shorter took up the clarinet as a teenager but moved on to tenor sax. Studies at NYU in the 1950s were coupled with regular visits to the city’s jazz clubs, where he encountered artists who would become regular collaborators. Roles in the big bands of Nat Phipps and Maynard Ferguson were followed by celebrated tenures with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and the second iteration of the Miles Davis Quintet in the mid-’60s. He founded the group Weather Report in 1971, then his own Wayne Shorter Quartet in 2000. Always pushing musical boundaries, Shorter guested with popular artists, on film scores and occasional classical crossovers.
Virginia Zeani Born 1925 Soprano
A great star of the opera stage, Zeani (pictured in 1962 rehearsing for La traviata at The Royal Opera House) made her professional debut aged 22 in Bologna as La traviata’s Violetta, a role she would go on to perform over 600 times. Born in Solovăstru, Romania, she began lessons in Bucharest as a child and at 21 was offered the chance to study in Milan. It was in Italy that she truly found her voice, studying with Aureliano Pertile and various members of the operatic fraternity at La Scala – including those with direct links back to Puccini and Mascagni. She didn’t make her La Scala debut until 1956, in Giulio Cesare, by which time she had already performed in other major European opera houses; she even undertook a tour of Great Britain in 1953 in celebration of the Queen’s coronation. Zeani retired in 1982 and settled into life as a singing teacher at Indiana University Bloomington in the United States.
Also remembered…
French horn player Daniel Bourgue (born 1937 ) was one of the finest players of his generation who performed with many major European orchestras and was a much-admired writer and teacher.
British clarinettist, saxophonist and composer Tony Coe (born 1934) was the first non-american to win the coveted Jazzparr Prize in 1995.