Footprints: The Life and Work of Wayne Shorter

I finished Footprints: The Life and Work of Wayne Shorter by Michelle Mercer last night. I enjoyed it for the most part, though the book is not without its problems. If I am remembering correctly, this is the only biography of a person still living that I've read to date. It is also the only authorized biography I have ever read, in the sense that Shorter himself actively participated in its creation by granting hours of informal interviews to the author. As such, it raises some obvious questions.

I must admit that I initially found the idea of helping to write one's own biography distasteful. Throughout the book, Mercer paints Shorter as an excessively humble, self-effacing guy, yet here he is, contributing copiously to his own biography. Can there be anything more self-indulgent? Also, on some level I question the very premise of writing a biography of a living person. Anyone whose life's work is not complete, and, more importantly, has not had a chance to be analyzed fully and influence those who come after, does not deserve a biography, one might argue. But then, one could probably argue the opposite just as effectively, assuming the subject has made sufficient achievements in his lifetime. And on that count, Shorter definitely qualifies. While not unique, he is one of a very small group of musicians still living that have a direct link to the “magic” jazz age of the 1950s and 60s. And of those, the group that is still actively recording and performing is even smaller. In fact, besides Shorter, the only one I can think of readily is Herbie Hancock (widely discussed in the book). Since jazz, even the most accessible kind, has a very tenuous connection to the mainstream, we have no idea whether in twenty or thirty years anyone will be capable of writing about someone like Shorter, much less inclined to, so I suppose it makes sense for someone to do it while the opportunity is there.

Mercer is definitely a fan, and that, combined with the authorized nature of the book, makes the writing laudatory. A little one-dimensionally so. Throughout the book, Mercer paints Shorter as a really nice guy, and downplays what a more impartial biographer would emphasize. It's not that I'm looking for “dirt,” but deployed judiciously, it can help the reader form a more complete picture of the subject. The most glaring example is that if Footprints is accurate, Shorter is the only major jazz musician in history who has never used any drugs. I find that difficult to believe (though not impossible – even today, at 74, he seems to be in excellent shape). His first marriage gets exactly one paragraph. And, perhaps most disappointingly, I would have loved to know more about Shorter's brother Alan.

Alan appears to have been a professional musician too (it's not entirely clear), a trumpeter, but his style was so avant-garde that he had no public success at all in the US, and even in Europe, where he lived for most of his life, it was marginal. Was he a good musician, just misunderstood? Or did he never acquire real skills as a player and compensated by simply being weird? Did his personal idiosyncrasies, which Mercer examines just enough to give her readers a taste, contribute to his bizarre style? We don't know. Granted, this is a biography of Wayne Shorter, not his brother. Still, since it's pretty much a given that Alan himself will never get a biography of his own, I would have been interested to know more.

All that said, the book is far better than just about any other fan-written biography I've come across. First of all, Mercer is a solid writer. She makes extensive use of direct quotes, both from Shorter and many other people who knew him, but she works them expertly into the text, and the narrative flows smoothly. She also deserves credit for some coverage of Shorter's demons. While drug use is conspicuously absent, Mercer makes no secret of his drinking, and eventually the admission comes that it was a serious problem that plagued him through most of his life. What “dirt” there is, it is entertaining, like the incident when Tina Turner came to stay with the Shorters to escape her abusive husband.

Mercer's biggest accomplishment for me, however, is tying the arc of tragedy in Shorter's life to the decisions he made as a musician. And tragedy there was, in spades. Severely brain-damaged daughter who finally died at fourteen, after being cared for on a daily basis by Shorter and his wife. Father being killed in a car accident on his way to see Wayne. Brother dying prematurely of a ruptured aorta. Seeing great jazz musicians and close personal friends go one by one – Coltrane, Lee Morgan, Miles. And finally, Ana Maria, his wife of 26 years, mother of the brain-damaged daughter, with whom he reunited once after a separation, and who had serious drinking problems of her own that they overcame together, being killed on TWA Flight 800 in 1996.

Through most of his career, Shorter was excoriated by critics for many of his solo recordings. Too electric. Too rock-n-roll. Then, ten years later, not rock-n-roll enough. The writing is too dense. Live shows are a mess (because the musicians can't play the dense writing). Touring with Santana cheapens his value as a jazz improviser. Etc., etc. I haven't heard most of his solo recordings of the 70s and 80s. But Mercer, to her credit, has. According to her, there is real depth to the music, especially compositionally. More than occasionally, that depth was too personal – accessible only to Shorter himself, unless explained – hence the lack of critical acceptance. After reading the book and learning what he went through, I cannot begrudge him the opacity of his solo output.

On purely musical terms, the book mostly satisfies. I'm not sure if Mercer is a musician herself – I suspect not – but she understands enough to discuss the music intelligently. Someone looking for really deep analysis of the minutia of Shorter's composing and improvisation will not find it here, but that allows Mercer to avoid entirely the turgid, high-falutin' commentary that some supposedly great critics have indulged in in the past (Martin Williams comes to mind).

My final criticism has to do with the way the book discusses the way Shorter talks. Mercer makes a big deal of Shorter's oblique, oracular way of speaking, about music as well as everything else. When one of his short-term bands in the early 80s botches a tune when trying to improvise multiple lines simultaneously, his assessment is “sometimes a rabbit runs down a hole, and sometimes he falls down a hole.” “Put more water into those chords,” he tells pianist Danilo Perez. Perez contemplates for a while, thinks he knows what Shorter wants; they do another take. “But the water has to be clean,” Shorter says. Mercer paints this as a positive, a sign of his unorthodox, all-encompassing thinking, and a skill at incorporating all experiences into his music-making. In fact, she implies a bit of a special status for herself when she enthuses that Shorter talks to her like that, too, and that she understands him. The anecdote she uses that illustrates this well is a phone call that interrupts one of their interviews. A journalist wants to ask Shorter questions about his new album. Shorter tries to talk his abstract philosophy, but the journalist persists. Finally, Shorter gives up and gives him the direct answers he wants. When he hangs up, he asks Mercer, “you don't want me to talk to you like that, do you?” Maybe she doesn't, but as a reader who does not know Shorter personally, I want her to. Yes, the fact that he has a tendency to speak in cryptic koans is telling, but I cannot imagine at least some people's reaction not being simply "that dude is weird. Can't he talk like a normal person?" True, his insistence on a broad-terms approach is a sign of an advanced mind, but it is also, I am sure, an explanation for many failures and misunderstandings in his music and his life, and deserves to be examined as such.