Saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter has not only left his footprints on our musical terrain, he has created a body of work that is a monument to artistic imagination. Throughout Shorter''s extraordinary fifty-year career, his compositions have helped define the sounds of each distinct era in the history of jazz. Filled with musical analysis by Mercer, enlivened by Shorter''s vivid recollections and enriched by more than seventy-five original interviews with his friends and associates, this book is at once an invaluable history of music from bebop to pop, an intimate and moving biography and a story of a man''s struggle toward the full realization of his gifts and of himself.Hardly anyone will dispute Shorters''s overall importance as one of jazz''s leading figures over a long span of time. Though indebted to a great extent to John Coltrane, with whom he practiced in the mid-''50s while still an undergraduate, Shorter eventually developed his own more succinct manner on tenor sax, retaining the tough tone quality and intensity and, in later years, adding an element of funk. Shorter has played with the greats of jazz during his career including Horace Silver, Maynard Ferguson, Art Blakey, Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis, becoming the bands most prolific composer. In 1970, Shorter, along with his old cohorts, formed the band Weather Report and went on to tour with the likes of Santana and has also featured on albums from the Rolling Stones. In 2006, Blue Note released the long awaited ''Blue Note''s Great Sessions: Wayne Shorter.''