The Peabody Jazz Quartet presents The Music of Wayne Shorter

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The Peabody Jazz Quartet presents “The Music of Wayne Shorter”.  This quartet from Peabody Conservatory’s renowned Jazz department consists of, Allen Branch on drums (Junior), Lawrence Hutfles on bass (Senior), Robert Gilliam on tenor saxophone (Sophomore), and Gavin Horning on guitar (2nd year graduate student).  This program was coordinated by 2nd year GPD student, Gavin Horning, to celebrate the melodic intricacies of some of Wayne Shorter’s most profound musical compositions.  Wayne Shorter has been and continues to be one of the single most influential musicians in modern music.  His stardom rose as he became the music director for Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers composing many of the most cutting-edge pieces of Jazz repertoire at the time.  Shorter’s innumerable musical credentials include the bands of Miles Davis, co-creator of Weather Report, Steely Dan, and countless others, leading to his winning of 11 GRAMMY awards.  No stone is left unturned through the incorporation of his bandstand experience with his compositions.  Shorter’s music combines elements of the swing and bebop eras with standard jazz harmony progressions with a variety of modal progressions, modern harmonic movement, and difficult passages for improvisers to navigate.  However, his music can frequently be found to reflect the pop and rock idioms for which much of his touring and recording career were spent navigating. Shorter can be heard playing one of his iconic solos on Steely Dan’s title track “Aja”, for which he is famous for.  During the 70s and 80s he adapted to the growing studio recording industry and as a result can be found on many of Joni Mitchell’s studio albums, recordings with Don Henley, Carlos Santana, and many others. Thus, his music is a culmination of each chapter of the development of American music through much of the 20th century.  Despite the variety of activity in Shorter’s compositions, the sense of groove and swing is continually prominent and ties together the complexity of the music. 

The Peabody Jazz Quartet will be featuring some of his most well-known compositions but will also present many of Shorter’s lesser performed compositions that often contains his most rich harmonic content.  This quartet has now had two full academic years performing with each other in combo settings, big band settings, as well as on other gigs.  Each member is not only a student at the prestigious Peabody Conservatory, but can be found gigging professionally amongst the city of Baltimore’s Jazz musicians as well as DC, the Mid-Atlantic region, and many of the top Jazz artists today.  The performance will take a slight tangent to feature several of the quartet members’ compositions as well.  Composing is an integral part to the development and education of Jazz musicians and provides the opportunity to work with a group bringing a musical piece to life.