Wayne Shorter, a saxophonist and composer, has died

Wayne Shorter, a saxophonist and composer who had been universally acknowledged as one of the most original and influential jazz artists of the last six decades, died Thursday. He was 89.

Shorter, who worked closely with Art Blakey and Miles Davis and co-founded the Weather Report jazz fusion ensemble, died at an L.A. hospital, his publicist Alisse Kingsley confirmed to the Los Angeles Times. There was no information immediately as to his cause of death.

“Shorter’s achievements as a composer,” Chicago Tribune jazz critic Howard Reich wrote in 2013, “place him at the pinnacle of the art form, his tunes not only long regarded as fundamental to the jazz canon of the past half-century, but really resembling no one else’s work.”

Shorter’s achievements as a saxophonist — playing tenor and soprano saxophones — were equally impressive. Moving freely across an expressive horizon reaching from bebop to free improvisation, he enhanced his imaginative soloing with a rich palette of saxophone sounds and textures. His influence, which followed the impact of John Coltrane’s playing, can be heard in the work of a wide range of contemporary tenor saxophonists, including Joe Lovano, Branford Marsalis, Chris Potter, Ravi Coltrane and numerous others.

This is a developing story and will be updated.