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![Wayne Shorter Essentials](/https/music.apple.com/assets/artwork/1x1.gif)
Saxophonist/composer Wayne Shorter would have claimed a place in the jazz pantheon even if his career had been limited to his time as a key member of drummer Art Blakey's hard-bopping groups from the ’50s and ’60s. But Shorter achieved so much more. His original tunes and playing contributed to a Miles Davis group so potent, everyone took to calling it Davis’ “second great quintet.” (The first great quintet, of course, was the trumpeter's band with John Coltrane.) After sticking with Davis through the beginning of the fusion period, Shorter went on to co-found the electrified group Weather Report. And his latter-day quartet was a force to be reckoned with too. He continued to work well into his eighties, including collaborating with Esperanza Spalding on the opera Iphigenia in 2021. Shorter died in March 2023 at the age of 89.