Wayne Shorter (born August 25 1933) is an American jazz composer and saxophonist, commonly regarded as one of the more important American jazz sax players and composers since the 1960s.

Shorter has recorded dozens of albums as a leader, and appeared on dozens more with others including Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in the late 1950s, Miles Davis second great quintet in the 1960s and the jazz-rock fusion band Weather Report, which Shorter co-led in the 1970s. Many of his compositions have become standards.

Wayne Shorter (born August 25, 1933) is an American jazz composer and saxophonist. Shorter has recorded dozens of albums as a leader, and appeared on dozens more with others. Many of his compositions have become standards. Shorter was born in Newark, New Jersey, and attended Newark Arts High School. He was encouraged by his father to take up the saxophone as a teenager (his brother Alan became a trumpeter). After graduating from New York University in 1956 Shorter spent two years in the US Army,