When Tina Turner fled an abusive marriage in 1976 with nothing but the clothes on her back, the home that sheltered her for six months belonged to Wayne Shorter. This episode traces his nearly 70-year career from Newark, New Jersey, where he was born in 1933 and so lost in comic books, outer space and science fiction that peers nicknamed him Mr. Gone. He did not start clarinet until 16, switched to tenor saxophone, earned a music education degree from NYU in 1956, served two years in the army, paid dues with Horace Silver and Maynard Ferguson, and in 1959 joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, quickly becoming musical director and primary composer at 26.

Recruited by Miles Davis in 1964 for the Second Great Quintet, Shorter wrote floating, elliptical compositions that Davis, a ruthless editor, left unchanged. He made the soprano saxophone his ...