HERE’S a story of two powerful and epochal saxophonists, one from the US, the other a Londoner.

The first is Wayne Shorter, born in Newark, New Jersey in 1933, who died in March this year, after a lifetime of jazz invention. The musical director and fiery hornman of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in their most rampaging years between 1959-1963; leader of the series of ’60s insurgent albums for Blue Note, tenorist in one of Miles Davis’s most formidable quintets from 1964 -70, and co-instigator of Weather Report, a pioneering fusion band of electronic jazz. 

In essence, a discovering genius of the music, an enormous loss, hugely lamented.

The second is Denys Baptiste, the son of St Lucian parents, born in Hounslow, West London in 1969. A saxophonist with a warmly and defiantly beautiful tone and potent technique, with Caribbean rhythms boiling in his blood, a creative hornman of several momentous albums including Let Freedom Ring!, Identity by Subtraction and his tribute to John Coltrane: The Late Trane.

The Shorter/Baptiste musical spirits were conjoined recently during a memorable session at Soho’s Pizza Express, when Baptiste played a selection of Shorter compositions from his 1964 albums Speak No Evil and Night Dreamer, with veteran Jamaica-rooted bassist Gary Crosby, Washington DC drummer Rod Youngs, London pianist Andrew McCormack and the young Uganda-born trumpeter, Mark Kavuma.

I asked Baptiste about his early life as a musician. “My parents moved to London from St Lucia in the early ’60s,” he says. “My dad worked for London Transport as a bus mechanic, and was previously in the British Army, stationed in the Far East and Germany. My mum worked for the Inland Revenue.

“As a teenager I liked any music with saxophones in it — the 1980s ska bands like The Specials, The Beat and Madness. I became aware of jazz by accident. I remember hearing Birdland by Weather Report: and BBC Radio London had a show which played calypso and Caribbean music, and the theme which topped and tailed the show was Don’t Stop the Carnival by Sonny Rollins. I’d listen to the show just to hear the theme!”

He began at 13 on clarinet because his school had no saxophones. “At 14 I got a tenor and looked for musicians to inspire me. I found some records in my dad’s collection — one of them was of Count Basie’s Orchestra playing Evenin’, which had a tenor sax solo on it which seemed easy to play. I transcribed and played along with it, not really knowing what I was doing, just trying to absorb and replicate it. I didn’t have the money to buy records, so I borrowed them from the local library. Dexter Gordon became my first major saxophone influence.”

I asked him about his love of Caribbean music. “Calypso, Soca, Reggae and Country and Western was what I grew up with,” he replies, “at parties, on the radio and around the house. So these influences, however subtle, are in my compositions and playing. My rhythmic approach stems from Caribbean music. I’m very proud of my heritage and have integrated its influences into my recording projects. I continue to play with Jazz Jamaica, fusing jazz with Caribbean rhythms.”

And what about the immensity of Wayne Shorter’s music? How did it affect him?

“I got Speak No Evil on cassette when I was young and played it so much that it eventually stretched the tape and broke! That, Adam’s Apple and Ju Ju were the albums I listened to most. Wayne was a special musician. He composed and improvised in a way that is instantly recognisable. He was another musician who passed through a significant evolution from Art Blakey to Miles, Weather Report, Joni Mitchell and his late quartet recordings. You can always tell it’s Wayne. He was able to fit in all contexts with supreme musicality.”

I listened closely to Baptiste playing Black Nile from the Night Dreamer album. He introduced it by calling Shorter a “visionary.” What did he mean?

“So many of his compositions have become standard repertoire for jazz musicians,” says Baptiste. “They may sound relatively simple, but once you start to play them you realise there’s a layer of complexity that isn’t immediately evident. His melodies are accessible but the harmony that underpins them is very complex.”

He points out that pianist McCormack found it challenging to re-harmonise Shorter’s compositions like Infant Eyes and Dance Cadaverous — tracks on Speak No Evil — because “he made the harmony so specific that they are complete as they are and altering it will not add anything.”

Baptiste summarised Shorter’s genius in this way: “His unique approach to composition and soloing goes in unexpected and highly creative directions. He wasn’t afraid of being himself and never lost that inquisitive, playful aspect in his music. He always sounds like Wayne and always surprises you.”

One powerful horn describing another as if there were never an ocean between them: exemplifying jazz as a music of empathy, intensity and the humanity of shared and beautiful sound.