In 1959, Shorter joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers where he stayed for four years, eventually becoming musical director and composing pieces for the band. His early influences include Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane and Coleman Hawkins.

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Gone', which later became an album title for Weather Report. In his youth Shorter had acquired the nickname 'Mr. After his discharge, he played with Maynard Ferguson. Army, during which time he played briefly with Horace Silver. After graduating from New York University with a degree in music education in 1956, Shorter spent two years in the U.S. While in high school, Wayne also performed with the Nat Phipps Band in Newark. His older brother Alan played alto saxophone before switching to the trumpet in college. He loved comic books and science fiction growing up, as well as music and was encouraged by his parents to take clarinet lessons at age 16 and later switched to tenor saxophone before enrolling at New York University in 1952. Wayne Shorter was born in Newark, New Jersey the son of Louise and Joseph Shorter, he graduated from Newark Arts High School in 1952. In 2017, he was awarded the Polar Music Prize. The New York Times music critic Ben Ratliff described Shorter in 2008 as 'probably jazz's greatest living small-group composer and a contender for greatest living improviser'. He was acclaimed for his mastery of the soprano saxophone since switching his focus from the tenor in the late 1960s and beginning an extended reign in 1970 as DownBeat 's annual poll-winner on that instrument, winning the critics' poll for 10 consecutive years and the readers' for 18. Many Shorter compositions have become jazz standards, and his music has earned worldwide recognition, critical praise, and commendation. He recorded more than 20 albums as a bandleader. In the 1960s, he joined Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet, and then co-founded the jazz fusion band Weather Report.

Shorter came to prominence in the late 1950s as a member of, and eventually primary composer for Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. Wayne Shorter (Aug– March 2, 2023) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer.

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