01x02 - Faith Is to Be Fearless 1972-1999

[bunniefuu]

[wind blowing]
[birds chirping]

[anticipatory music]

[Maria Lucien] Ana Maria,
she wanted to be a mother so badly,

and she got pregnant, and she was the
happiest pregnant woman you ever saw.

So in love with Wayne.

[Wayne] Before she was born,

I kind of felt that she
was gon' be on an odyssey,

so I wrote "Odyssey of Iska"...

[mysterious music plays]

'cause I have a thing about there's no
such thing as a beginning or ending

and nothing's ever finished.
'cause who says?

I like the word "potential"
rather than "a beginning."

When she was actually being
monitored in the womb,

I remember they said,
"The baby is in distress."

Then he said it again.
"The baby's in distress."

[mysterious music continues]

[Maria Lucien] And then she had the baby.
The baby born very nice.

They give her the name Iska.

Everything was so beautiful, so beautiful.

[Wayne] About three months, she had the
tetanus and whooping cough vaccinations.

[Maria Lucien] She take the shots
and then they had to go out that night,

and she asked me to take care of her.

And certain time at night,

I saw her start to shaking,
and this, what is this?

[Wayne] I remember hearing the crib
shaking.

[makes rattling sound]

Like that. And I went and her hands and
legs were doing like this.

[siren wailing]

And we rushed her to the hospital,
and then they found out that

she had damaged arteries in the brain

and they said she was having convulsions.

[Maria Lucien] And then from then on,

it was seizure after
seizure after seizure.

Iska brain damage, they call
it the malady above the head.

But this damage, just in order to show us
the ultimate law of life

in ways that we would never could realize
that could be shown,

and moved from New York
because of the four seasons.

A change of season would
help to trigger convulsions,

so we moved to California.

We went to talk with one of
the doctors at Children's Hospital.

She said, "First I want to
ask, how are the parents?

How are you?"
And they started talking about how parents

start to blame each other for things.

That's when Herbie's family and my family
started to see each other a lot.

[Carolina] He would purposely try to see
what would it be like in her world.

That to me is really incredible.

[Michelle] Wayne said when
he spent time with Iska,

he just wanted to emanate pure joy,

because in her presence, that's the only
thing that kind of made sense.

She didn't respond to sharp tones anymore.
She didn't respond to blame.

[Matilda] It was a very hard time for Ana
Maria. She was a young, beautiful,

vibrant person who was spending half
her time in the emergency room

very worried about her daughter,
and her husband was on the road.

[Wayne] The seizures
would come sometimes 15 a day,

but the doctor said there were more.

Said there could be 30 or 40
that you can't recognize.

[siren wailing]

Sometimes Ana Maria'd tell me
that they rushed to the hospital

in a police car going
through the red lights.

[Susie] They suffered.

I know Wayne suffered because Wayne
had a lot of problems with alcohol,

and Ana Maria struggled with other issues.

[Kathy] Her whole motherhood
was primarily without Wayne,

because Wayne was on the road.
You know, he was working.

[Wayne] When Iska had seizures,

it felt like...

Like we were being tested,

and it felt like

it was nothing we could do

but rush to the hospital.

[gentle music]

Faith is to fear nothing.

[energetic jazz music]

[Michelle] So, lots of musicians were sort
of moving in and out of Miles' group,

and part of that was because Miles
was beginning to go electric.

Wayne had shifted to
the soprano saxophone.

[Wayne] Miles and I have talked,
"You think you want your own band?

You think it's time for
you to get your own band?"

I said, "Yeah."

He said, "All right."

[rhythmic sitar music playing]

[Jason] There are all kinds of different
spiritual teachers coming

to the United States and
meeting this really engaged

and interested hungry
generational audience.

[rhythmic sitar music playing]

And among those were some of the most
exploratory jazz musicians of that decade.

[Bob Belden] At that time, jazz was about
bands.

The idea of this lone solo artist had gone
aside and now it was like rock groups.

You were competing with rock groups.

[percussive cymbal music]

[Wayne] We got a band together
and started just rehearsing.

"What are you gonna call the music?"

"How 'bout 'The Audience'?"
No, no, no.

I said, "How 'bout 'The Evening News'?

Everyone listens to the news.
What is everyone really concerned about?"

Today almost like summer again.
The warm temperatures up to

as high as 86 degrees in Gainesville.

[Wayne] Weather.

And Joe said, "Yeah,
the weather forecast."

I said, "Yeah, weather report."

"Yeah!"
And then that's when they go, "Yeah!"

[percussive jazz music]

[Hal] What set Weather Report
apart from every fusion band

was they had probably two of the finest
composers in the history of their music

with Zawinul and Wayne Shorter,
so the quality of the music

was heads and shoulders above everything.

[Peter] Weather Report was Joe and
Wayne...

[band playing rhythmic jazz song]

along with Miroslav
Vitous in the beginning,

and a revolving cast of
drummers and percussionists.

[Michelle] Its personnel shifted
constantly.

[Peter] The one constant was always
Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul.

Joe was street-tough. Wayne was gentle.

Joe could be very direct, Wayne enigmatic.

[Hal] Joe was certainly very
opinionated and outgoing,

whereas you could sit next
to Wayne for two hours

and it would be like sitting
next to Thelonious Monk.

I mean, nothing.

[Joe Zawinul] This is just a communication
thing. You always need one guy.

Wayne and me, we don't
have to look at each other.

This is just a matter of magic, you know?
Whatever you call it.

Or just being able to hear
very well, and it's great.

We can communicate very,
very good together.

[Peter] Weather Report was yin and yang.

The tension-release of their conflicting
styles were thrown together,

kind of like what happens
in some kind of either

a fission or fusion of nuclear materials.

[band playing rhythmic jazz music]

[Alphonso] You listen to their music and
it's like you've never heard it before.

It sparks something in the imagination
that makes you think that,

"Yeah, this is possible."

Just so unique.

[Terence] Weather Report was one
of the first indications

of how he as an artist never stood still.

[Show host] The Jazz Group of the Year
Award

is a very, very heavy award,
and probably the most prestigious one.

Weather Report has been Jazz Group of the
year for the past four readers' polls.

[Bob Belden] By 1974,
they were just one of

the most meticulously-composed
jazz groups period,

and the only reason
why they became popular

is because they wrote
songs that people liked.

[bright jazz music]

[Lenny] There's this free-playing
and there was a transition

between the free-playing
hard bop and rock and roll,

which created this jazz-rock movement.

[Jason] Nobody quite crossed
over like this band.

People loved that band.
Kids listened to that band.

It was music you could hum to.
It was music you could dance to.

It still had roots,
it still had chance-taking,

and especially in the live context.

[bright jazz music continues]

[funky music]

[Wayne] The culture
of ingesting substance

was all around the nightclub world.

[funky jazz music continues]

When I went away for short periods,
I didn't know what she was going through.

The strain of my being away
and her be along with these seizures...

[Kathy] I think there was a part of Ana
Maria

that couldn't understand how
could this happen to her.

I mean, I'd go babysit her.

Sometimes she would be
days she would be gone.

I'd be calling my mother,
"She didn't come home,"

You know, and then the
next day and the next day.

Wayne dealt with that too,

days of her not coming home,
and he never complained.

[Susie] It was too much for them
with this precious child.

When it's a baby, it's one thing,

but then your baby's
three and five and six

and seven and eight still having seizures.

When it's in your face, it's a whole
different, you know, knife in your heart.

[Wayne] Ana Maria was nailing
something on a wall,

and I said, "What are you doing?"
She said, "Oh, this is a Butsudan,"

and says, "It's gonna be for my Gohonzon."

And I realized that she's going
to start practicing Buddhism.

She had a real reason
to begin practicing.

There was something
that she couldn't change

that was very deep.
It was their daughter Iska.

[people chanting]

So, Herbie said, "Why
don't you try chanting?

[chanting continues]

Why don't you try to move
the karma of your life?"

[energetic electronic jazz music]

[Wayne] We knew we were in
competition with the big sound

that rock and roll bands had,
so we had to [grunts],

[mimics drumming]

then Jaco came in and sealed the deal.

[energetic jazz music continues]

[Hal] Jaco was not only a fantastic,
incredible bass player,

but Jaco was flamboyant.

Jaco was young, so you
got the young audience.

[Wayne] The young people,
they saw him on stage with his

Mescalero [indistinct]
stuff around his head.

Jaco was a lot of fun.
He would jump off the stage sometimes.

[Michelle] They were playing
these big stadium shows,

which would get pretty elaborate.

I mean, you had Jaco
Pastorius at one point

sprinkling baby powder on the
stage and doing a moonwalk.

[bright jazz music]

[Bob Belden] You went to a Weather
Report show in the mid-70s,

it was a social event.
People from all walks of life.

Guys dressed up with the big hats
and the women in the short skirts,

and you'd see old people waiting to hear

some Art Blakey stuff or Miles Davis
stuff,

and you'd see all the young students go,

"Wow, I can't wait to imitate
that stuff when I get back."

They were the first band

to really embrace the whole pop
aesthetic in their concerts,

'cause they were the
first jazz band I know

to play two-hour concerts
without stopping.

[Wayne] Greetings.

[audience cheering]

How you feeling?

[audience cheering]

That's Peter Erskine.

[audience cheering]

Jaco.

Have fun.

Joe Zawinul.

[Peter] Zawinul comes up to me.

He says, "You know,
we don't have too many rules in this band,

but we have one very important
rule you need to know.

Don't play anything obvious."

[saxophone solo]

[Peter] So many of the bands in the early
1970s on were the children of Miles Davis.

There was no escaping that.

When the band was going to be
taking part in a press conference,

Joe or Jaco would say,
"All right, but no questions about Miles.

First question about
Miles, we're walking out."

we played a concert and there
was this press conference.

The very first question
was about Miles Davis.

I don't know who who first.
It was either Joe or Jaco who stood up,

and then the rest of us followed suit, and
we just kinda looked at each other like,

"What's my line?" And boom, marched out
of the press conference.

The band cultivated a sense of mystique.

The band was aware of its mythology.

[Shorter playing saxophone solo]

[Michelle] At some point in the concerts,

Wayne and Joe would go out alone
and would just play a duet.

Joe would listen to Wayne so attentively,

with such concern for
every note he was playing.

[mysterious music plays]

At home, Iska, his daughter,
was having seizures.

It put a great strain on Ana Maria,
and so that made Wayne feel very guilty

every time he would go to the airport
and leave for another big stadium tour.

[mysterious music continues]

[Maria Lucien] I come home one time
and Ana Maria was lost again.

Ana Maria was disappearing.

[waves lapping]
[somber jazz music]

[Peter] I didn't know that
the trials or tribulations

that the guy was going through.

He never talked about it.

[Wayne] One day, Ana Maria, she was in
front of this box with a scroll.

I kneeled down next to her, and I said,
"Show me what you're doing,"

and she took a little book and said,
"See if you can say this with me."

[hums]

[chanting]

It was a sutra, a teaching,

[chanting continues]

and I did it, and I was doing that,
and I had to go on the road.

I was going to Japan.

[percussive Japanese-style music]

I was still in the party mood.
We would play the concert and all that,

and they had drinking sake and everything.

I wake up in the morning and try to say
these words with a hangover.

[bright jazz music]

[Bob] When Jaco had joined the band,

I went out there with a tape recorder
to interview him for "Rolling Stone."

[bright jazz music continues]

We got done, he said,

"I've got a tape of the next Weather
Report album. You've got to hear this."

You know, it's considered their biggest
hit, if not their greatest album,

and when I reviewed it, I said,
"You know, this is a fantastic album,

however, it does not bode
well for Wayne Shorter."

[Peter] That's the kind of thing that,
yeah,

happens when bands get loud on stage.

The music gets painted into a corner.

The competition for noise
level between Joe and Jaco,

it did kind of paint Wayne into a corner

in terms of the amount of space, what he
could play, what he might contribute.

[Hal] As the band
got louder and louder,

Wayne was struggling, in a
sense, to find how he fit.

[Alphonso] You know, Joe was never
one to be shy, you know.

If you left a space in
there, he'd be right there.

There were times when Wayne
would just kind of withdraw.

[Peter] Wayne was just less showy, less
talkative, less a person of overt action.

I mean, that's the magic of Wayne.
That's the magic of his playing.

[Bob Belden] You had this new composer in
the band.

Jaco was very, very into it, very, very
into it. That was his dream gig.

[assertive bass solo]

[Terence] Wayne's contemporaries knew him
as

being such a dominant force
musically that they said,

"Oh, we can't hear Wayne."
You know, "Wayne's not the featured guy.

We don't understand why he's doing this.
He's such a great composer."

[Sonny] Playing an instrument,
you have to have an ego

or else you wouldn't be up there
playing in front of people.

On the other hand, you have to sublimate
your ego for the higher music.

[Shorter playing solo]

It can't just be about you,

because you make it about yourself,
then usually you're going to stop growing.

[energetic jazz music]

[Michelle] It was a time of
great conflict for Wayne.

He had committed himself to
being a member of what was then

an extremely popular jazz fusion group,

but music no longer had such
a significant place in his life.

[Gary] Well, if we're in a
suffering state of life,

then our thoughts and
our words and our actions

are informed by that state of life.

But when we're chanting, we really elevate
to a higher state of life.

That sort of enlightened state
of life informs our actions.

[Kathy] Wayne chanted hours and
hours and hours for Ana Maria.

He chanted five hours one
day, five hours another day.

He loved Ana Maria so much
and he loved Iska so much,

that was the means for Wayne
to transform all the darkness

that manifested between
Wayne and Ana Maria.

[Maria Lucien singing in Portuguese]

[Susie] Wayne was surrounded by women,
Ana Maria's friends.

He was surrounded by
the sound of Portuguese,

Maria and Ana and his niece Kathy,
they were always talking in Portuguese,

and of course, he was accustomed to it.

[Maria Lucien singing in Portuguese]

[Maria Lucien] Wayne come out with the
most far-out album, "Supernova."

He wanted me to sing on it.

I said, "You sure? Sure, I can do that.
I'm scared. I don't know."

Wayne told me, "I like your bamboo sound,"

that sound of my voice, bamboo.

[Milton Nascimento singing in Portuguese]

[Michelle] Ana Maria was
a Milton Nascimento fan,

so she was really encouraging Wayne

to do something with
Milton, and so they did.

They brought Milton and many
members of his band from Brazil

to LA and they all hung out together

in a house for days on
end working on the music

that would become "Native Dancer."

[singing continues]

The very first song is
called "Ponta de Areia."

[performers singing "Ponta de Areia"]

[Larry] "Ponta de Areia,"
The first time I heard it,

it instantly took me somewhere new inside
myself. I was changed, you know?

["Ponta de Areia" plays]

[man] Wayne's listening
to this singer saying

there's a conversation
already going on between us.

[Larry] The way that his playing
worked with Milton's voice,

braiding together of the
two of their sensibilities

was just gorgeous.

[Alphonso] The fusion of Wayne and Milton,
it was just so perfect.

It didn't sound like, okay,

here's the Brazilian stuff
and here's the American stuff.

You know.
It just all seemed to flow together.

[audience cheering]
[rhythmic music]

[Peter] 1980, it was a party year,

and the band was in Rio in Brazil
for this jazz festival,

and there was some large party.
Wayne was following Ana Maria around.

She seemed to have her...

She was on the arm of a younger guy.
I don't know who he was.

None of us knew who this guy was.

We didn't understand what
was going on between them,

and the only chance that Wayne was able
to be gentle and loving with her,

it was on a flight from Brazil,
from Rio, to Buenos Aires.

She was passed out in the seat,

and he was very sweetly
whispering into her ear.

The only time he could
get her full attention

was when she was totally passed out.

[Matilda] Ana Maria, Wayne, maybe some
other, very, very small group.

We were in Palm Springs for the weekend,

and we went out to a
restaurant for dinner.

Ana excused herself to go to the bathroom.

About an hour later, we
realized she never came back.

You know, we'd looked in the bathroom,
and we looked for her,

and I remember saying to Wayne,
"We better do something."

He says, "Oh no, it's not necessary."

It was just those words,
"It's not necessary."

He had sort of dismissed
that anything could be awry.

I think Wayne generally sort
of has a long-range view.

Maybe some of it could be denial.
Who knows?

[Kathy] There was an aspect of her
character

that everybody kind of
wrote off as being crazy.

You know, "Oh, Ana Maria is crazy.

Don't worry about," you
know, "Oh, she's so crazy."

The dumb b*tch. She won't let me listen
to her conversation.

She says I distort everything.

[Friend] You distort everything?

Means that she said that I said that I
said that

she said that I said that she didn't say.

[emotional music]

[Maria Lucien] Iska was already a big
girl. She was 14 years old.

She wanted to eat all the time.

That was one of the things, eat.

And they always have a lady, too,

a housekeeper to take care,

and looks like she saw where
the housekeeper put the pills.

[Carolina] Ana Maria was always
taking pills all the time.

She didn't know what she was doing.
It was like playing, like imitating.

And that was something
she thought it was fun

or the right thing to do.

Everybody's convinced she
didn't know what she was doing.

[emotional music continues]

[Wayne] I was in Poland.
The phone rang, and Ana Maria said,

"Iska, our daughter died, Iska Maria."

I'm getting ready to cancel the concert,
and you know, and she said, "Stay there."

She said, "I'm gonna take care of the
memorial and everything."

When Iska died, that was a
very, very revealing moment.

There's just a look on his
face that's real intense.

You can see as the brows furrow.

You can see his face kind of harden,

and then you just see him
kind of let go, you know?

[Maria Lucien] More sadness.

More sadness for Ana Maria, too.

More drinking.

[Kathy] You know, she picked
up a bottle of vodka

and was just drinking it down,
but it was like,

I just never saw that
kind of pain before in her

and she never expressed it before.

I really saw at that point
that Ana Maria wasn't crazy,

but that she was an alcoholic.

[Maria Lucien] He had his music, but Ana
Maria didn't.

And Ana Maria was a mother
who was just very lost.

If it was not Buddhism,
Wayne could not handle.

That's what Wayne survived.
And Ana Maria survived, too.

Because she did, and
she becomes very good.

She changed, changed with the practice.

[Wayne] And that's all this strength that
never left, that was always there.

[somber music]

[Michelle] Wayne's Buddhist
practice taught him

how to turn challenges into opportunities,

poison to medicine.

One of those trying periods for
Wayne was when he lost Iska,

he lost his mother,

and he lost his brother
in rapid succession.

[Wayne] This whole thing was where we
played.

[somber music]

Yeah, we had a pretty
big space to play in,

but it's like dirt and mounds,
and we made trenches and all that.

There's Mars, sand dunes,
jungle, everything.

[emotional music]

[Michelle] Alan never stopped
thinking of eccentricity

as a provocation and almost as a weapon.

It's very difficult to
carry around the burden

of wanting the world to reflect

your own strange vision of it,

and Wayne reconciled
himself to the difference

between his beautifully
imaginative vision of the world

and the world outside as he got older,
and Alan did not.

[Wayne] He was dedicated to, it's almost
like going down with the Titanic.

When he was being rushed to the hospital
when his aorta burst,

he was still talking like this:

"And you know, the universe,

Mars and stuff like that, you dig?"

He was still going.

[somber music]

Well, he had a nine-hour operation,

and he didn't survive the
operation in the hospital.

And I was in Europe then.

[Carolina] All those losses happen
in a period of five years,

but Wayne is always working on this quest

for the understanding
of eternity, of life.

[machine humming]

[bright orchestral music]

[Michelle] Wayne has always been a huge
fan of the movie "The Red Shoes."

[orchestral music continues]

[Wayne] The question they
asked in "The Red Shoes,"

the impresario asked the dancer...

Why do you want to dance?

Why do you want to live?

I don't exactly why, but I must.

Why do I write, do music?

That's why.

[Michelle] Wayne had artistic goals
that led him away from Weather Report.

His compositions were
growing in their magnitude.

[musicians conversing]

[person speaking French]

They were growing more
symphonic and more orchestral.

[orchestra music plays]

[Joni] Wayne is visual.
It's a rarer gift, you know,

to be able to paint pictures with notes.

Debussy was very visual.
Beethoven sometimes, you know.

I can't think of too many people

that are onomatopoetic
like that, you know?

♪ Listen ♪

♪ I thank God for you, Wayne Shorter ♪

♪ Blowing through the piney trees ♪

♪ I'm porous with travel fever ♪

♪ But I'm so glad to be on my own ♪

[Herbie] I think Wayne became
the only instrumental voice

that was really capable
of being equal to Joni,

not just in timbre or tone,
but in meaning, somehow.

[Joni] Well, he could take
metaphorical instruction.

That was the thing that distinguished him
from any musician that I ever worked with.

Okay, on one thing I said,
"You're the bird, right?"

[mellow rock music]

And the first thing that
he played was magnificent.

It was so birdlike, and he stopped,
and he went, "No, no, no.

Start me over." And I went, "I won't start
you over. I'll punch you in."

[mellow rock music]

On another piece, I said to him,

"Okay, you come in here and you get out
here, and you come in really sad.

Like just so sad, and you get out.

By the time you get to there,
you're really young, right?"

And he wouldn't balk at
instruction like that.

He was pictorial enough
and theatrical enough.

[Herbie] She just knew where
to leave the spaces for Wayne

and Wayne seemed to know where to play,

and of course, a lot of the
credit goes to Larry Klein.

[Larry] The thing that struck me most
profoundly about his playing

was the way that he played around words.

There was a song called
"Moon at the Window."

♪ People don't know how to love ♪

♪ They taste it and toss it ♪

♪ Turn it off and on like
a bathtub faucet, ooh ♪

[Larry] The first time he heard those
words...

[scatting]

Playing an argument
between a woman and a man.

And I thought, "Oh my God.

This guy is from another place," you know.

I thought of him as a paintbrush.
It wasn't like music.

It was more like painting,
which is right on.

So, I'm allowing him
to paint on my canvas.

[Larry] He was thinking like a
screenwriter

more than a saxophone player.

♪ At least the moon at the window ♪

♪ The thieves left that behind ♪

♪ Moon at the window ♪

[Miles Davis playing jazz solo]

[Wallace] It was 1991.
That was the last time I saw Miles.

His last performance was
at the Hollywood Bowl,

and Wayne Shorter was there,
and it was on Wayne Shorter's birthday.

[jazz solo continues]

[Joni] I came into the dressing
room, and Miles' back was to me,

and he had his hand on Wayne's shoulder

and he was hunkered over
him kind of like that.

In that whisper voice,

he was talking to Wayne about music,

so I was kind of fascinated,

so I'm tippy-toeing up behind
to hear what's being said.

[Wayne] Miles never talked at length, you
know?

He just would say a sentence or two.

He'd put his hands on my
shoulder, and he said,

"You need to be exposed."

[Joni] Basically what he was saying is,
"Push yourself forward.

If you don't, no one's
gonna do it for you,

and you're getting overshadowed by people
that aren't as good as you."

[Wayne] I went to get my seat
at the Hollywood Bowl,

and Miles left the dressing room,

came out on stage, and he
played "Happy Birthday."

To me.

[Joni] It was almost like he knew he was
going. He died four days later.

[Wayne] He called me before he passed,

and he said, "You write me something with
orchestra, you know?

But put a window in the strings
so I can get out of there."

[gentle music]

[Matilda] She knew how she
wanted to live her life.

She said, "You know?
Finally, I have to say,

after such winter in my life,
I feel that spring has come."

And when she said it, her face lit up.
Her eyes lit up,

only the way that Ana Maria's.

She had an incandescence
to her that was so lovely.

I'll do the next lifetime together, too.

Promise, next lifetime, right?

- You got it.
- This planet, next planet.

Any planet.

Now she really getting
the life, let me tell you.

She was made in Heaven.

[Interviewer] In one word,
how would you describe her?

Tough.

- Okay.
- Tops.

[Interviewer] Tops.

In one word, how would you describe your
husband, the birthday boy?

Imagination forever.

[Carolina] She was absolutely 100% clean
and living a healthy, wonderful full life.

[bright jazz music]

[Carolina] I had just arrived from Brazil.

I became very close friends with them.

The moment you first lay eyes on him,

you know that you are meeting someone

so absolutely unique,
out of this world.

I'd become very, very close to Ana Maria

because I was getting
out of a relationship,

and I moved in with them as per Ana
Maria's suggestion at that time.

She kept saying, "You have a mission here.
You can't go back to Brazil."

[Wayne] I got a recording
contract with Verve Records

and I'd wrote an album called "High Life,"

and we had orchestra,

34 members.

[Rob] We were on tour.
We had been in Europe, you know,

just slamming through the summer festival
season and having a good time.

And Ana Maria was coming
over with her niece,

Dalila, joining us for a concert in Rome.

[Maria Lucien] My daughter Dalila was the
painter.

She was like a Frida Kahlo.
She paint herself.

[Rob] She was going
to be going into art school,

so the idea was that Ana
Maria would take her to Rome.

She'd take her to some museums.

They'd go to Florence.

[Carolina] I had house-sat for them many
times throughout the years.

I was sort of the person they
trusted when they left town.

[Susie] The night before they left,

Ana Maria took...

took Carolina around by the hand

and showed her around the house

and said,
"Now this is where Wayne likes this,

and this is where Wayne likes that."

She had never done that before
from the day they'd met.

But Ana Maria did that
through the entire house.

In the morning, she
got up before Carolina,

and she went and made a latte
and brought it to Carolina in bed.

Carolina had always been
doing that for Ana Maria.

Everyone was very excited for them
because it was the first time Dalila

was going to be in Italy
and they were going to have the best time.

And Maria said to her,
"This is my daughter.

Don't let anything happen to her."

She was supposed to be on
a plane that got canceled,

and they put everybody

on that canceled plane on another plane,

but they were not going to
be able to go first class.

And she's telling me, "Oh, I got the plane
to change to first class

because they made a mistake, the TWA,

so now we going first class."
Oh, good.

[ominous music]

[Witness] We just had an expl*si*n out
there about five miles away,

six miles away. Looked like an expl*si*n
of some sort

on my nine o'clock position.

[Controller] 507, you report an expl*si*n,
is that correct, Sir?

[Witness] Yes, Sir.
It blew up in the air,

and then we saw two fireballs
go down into the water.

[Controller] Thank you very much, Sir.
TWA 800, if you hear center, ident.

[ominous music continues]

TWA 800, center. TWA 800.
If you hear center, ident.

[phone ringing]

[Rob] Sometime between maybe
three and four a.m.,

the phone rang in my hotel room.

The phone call was from Scott
Southard, Wayne's agent.

He said, "Rob, get up.
Turn the light on.

Go put some water on your face
and come back to the phone."

So, I did so.
Came back to the phone,

and Scott told me that there was a chance

that Ana Maria had been
involved in a plane accident.

[Reporter] The US Coast Guard tonight
is reporting an expl*si*n

about 10 miles south of Long Island.

[Reporter 2] 747 was on its way to
Paris from JFK in New York.

[Journalist] The TWA Flight 800,

a commercial 747 aircraft,
has exploded in midair.

[Maria Lucien] Thought that they were
going a plane to Italy,

and this plane that
crashed was going to Paris.

One of the first things I did was
call someone working in the group

and ask them to go sit in a
chair outside of Wayne's suite

and tell me when the light
came on in that room.

[somber music]

So, as we start to try to figure out

if they're on that flight, I called Cheri,
who at that time was the business liaison

at the White House, the point person
between all business in the US

and President Clinton at the time.

Cheri was able to get this information

from President Clinton,
and this came through as a fax,

through as a seating list.

[somber music]

I've got the news on in my
hotel room, watching CNN,

watching the horror of
this tragedy unfold,

while we waited for Wayne to wake up.

[people sobbing]

[CNN Journalist] French
authorities did what they could.

Shielded from the media,

family members of the victims of TWA 800

received medical and
psychological support.

[Rob] I got that phone call.

The sun was just beginning to rise.

Wayne answered the door with
a incredible questioning look on his face.

He said, "Rob, tell me what's wrong."

And I told him, I said, "You know, Wayne,

I'm afraid Ana Maria's
been in a plane crash."

I saw everything about Wayne
in his eyes as I told him.

I saw absolutely everything more

than I've ever seen to this day.

I saw everything that Wayne
Shorter is in his eyes.

[somber music]

This is my eternal sister.

This lifetime, next lifetime, eternally.

[Maria Lucien] And then I just saw the
plane blow up in the air

with the two people that I love so much.

Dalila was the love of
my life, my world, and...

[somber music]

[Carolina] The first thing he said is,

"Carolina, I want to make sure
you're not going anywhere,

that you're going to stay there,"

and I said, "I'm not going anywhere.

I'm not going anywhere."

[President Clinton] To the families of the
passengers of Flight 100,

we are well aware that
only the passage of time,

the love of your family,
and faith in God can ease your pain.

[somber music]

[Rob] We then stopped the tour.

We got Wayne and Alphonso
off to Los Angeles.

Certainly wasn't going
to have Wayne fly alone.

[Matilda] I remember we were so
nervous picking him up.

Like, how would it be? What could we say?
What should we do?

But one look at his face, you know?

He looked at us with those big
beautiful eyes, and he said,

"But how are you?
How are you?"

[Wayne] This so-called accident,

there's no such thing as
an accident, happened.

Her life was bigger than the accident.

She said, "I want to go first,

and you do the widow thing.

You're going to be strong
to do the widow thing."

And the reason why death happens over and
over again because it is not the end.

[Herbie] Wayne spent more time
consoling other people

when it was he that lost his wife.

[somber music]

[Herbie] Wayne was determined to not

be driven to the ground by that.

[Wayne] The tragedy of dying in an
airplane,

but I'm seeing that the
tragedy is temporary.

There's a constant that we have to pursue
and the constant is within us,

whether we know it or not,

and this constant is
waiting for us to know it.

[Herbie] I had never really considered
anybody a, quote, "best friend."

It actually occurred to
me several years later

just thinking about the
friendship that we have.

It was like me waking
up one day and saying,

"I guess Wayne is my best friend."

[Renée] I love the fact that he and Herbie
lived so near each other

and have had this long
artistic friendship,

and close friendship.
And I think, "Wow, how rare that is."

Here these two guys are touring the world

their whole adult lives, and yet at home,
they can come together and relax

and make music if they feel like it.

I was almost envious of that friendship,

and they're giants in the world of music.
Not just jazz, but music.

[soft jazz]

[Herbie] All right, this has the...
Let's see.

Wait.

One of these is cool.

Oh, I like that one.

I feel like Wayne is, in
many ways, like a mentor.

I look up to Wayne.

[Herbie] That's what I'm going with.
[Wayne] Nice, huh?

[Herbie] I feel more like a student

and that he's the wise sage.

[Terri] And I think that's incredible

because with all that
Herbie's accomplished,

to be able to be inspired by
your friend is very touching.

[audience cheering]

- Yeah.
- We gotta get something to eat.

Okay.
- Right. Right.

We got to get something to eat.
We got to get something to eat.

[Both] We got to get something to eat.
We gotta get something.

[Terence] You have to see Herbie
and Wayne together.

They're like twins, you know?
They're like Frick and Frack.

[Peer] Oh, Heidi.

[Terence] Wayne'll say something, and then
the rest of the room is like, "Huh?"

And then Herbie is like,
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right, right, right, right, right, right."

Every time.

[Herbie] You gonna get me all messed up,
Wayne.

[both laugh]

[Wayne] The critics will say, sometimes we
play something that's familiar

and we do variations on it
and everything like that.

They say, "Well, it's an
old piece all dressed up."

I say, "No, when it was
written, it was dressed up.

Now it's getting naked."

Yeah.

[mellow jazz]

[Herbie] Hold, hold, hold, hold. Try.

[Terence] It's a privilege to have
someone like that in your life,

and when I look at those two guys,

they're a shining example of, to me,
of what it means to be human.

[Michelle] Some people felt as if Ana
Maria knew something was going to happen,

and so she wanted somebody to be ready.

Who is this about?

[Michelle] There was a great
deal of ease and fluidity

with which Carolina moved into that role
after Ana Maria's death.

That was very, very important
to Wayne's grieving process, in many ways,

to have Carolina there.

[Carolina] I'm going to
take him to eat something.

Thank you guys for waiting
so long now with that.

[Rob] With Carolina, in the beginning,
she was taking care of him,

[mellow jazz music]

and then as time went on, he started
taking care of her in other ways,

deeper ways, spiritual ways.

[smooth jazz]

[Carolina] We already had this
beautiful, amazing friendship,

but at that moment, I think how our lives
mystically got together

is because I was coming
out of something painful

and he was going through
something painful,

and our lives started merging.

He did say he feels she
chose me to be there

because of these, you know,
these mystical things.

[emotional music]

[Wayne] I was actually
applying something philosophical

that I've been working through

to anything I'm going to
be doing from here on in.

I guess I can wrap it by saying-

That I'm in the pursuit of something
called indestructible happiness.

[emotional music]