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Wayne Shorter performing in San Sebastián, Spain, in 2017
Photo: VINCENT WEST / REUTERS
Jazz musician Wayne Shorter is dead. The influential saxophonist died in a hospital in Los Angeles on Thursday at the age of 89, his spokeswoman for the dpa news agency confirmed.
US media had previously reported.
Shorter was considered one of the most important composers and saxophonists in jazz and had received numerous awards - including eleven Grammys and an additional one for his life's work.
The musician "shaped the color and contours of modern jazz as one of its most intensely admired composers," wrote the New York Times.
Born in 1933 in the US state of New Jersey, Shorter was already considered a "jazz boy miracle" as a teenager in his high school band.
Many of his friends called him "Wayne the Brain" because he seemed to take ideas from everything and combine them with his thoughts into imaginative interpretations.
Duets with Herbie Hancock
Shorter studied music in New York and was soon playing with jazz greats like Miles Davis.
Highlights of his career included a series of duets with Herbie Hancock, captured on the 1995 album High Life.
In addition, Shorter composed jazz classics such as »Lester Left Town«, »Nefertiti«, »ESP« and »Footprints«.
Shorter's compositions, with their penchant for certain chords, offered soloists ample room for improvisation without compromising form and structure, US radio station NPR once judged.
Shorter released dozens of albums into old age.
The musician has been married several times and is a practicing Buddhist – which is what his music is based on, as he once said in an interview: »I want my music to make the listener remember that they are immortal.«
hba/dpa