Weather Report (1982)

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Weather Report
Weather Report studio album

Publication
(s)

1982

Label (s) Columbia Records

Format (s)

CD, LP

Genre (s)

Fusion jazz

Title (number)

7th

running time

41:04

occupation

production

Joe Zawinul, Jaco Pastorius, Wayne Shorter

Studio (s)

The Power Station, New York ; Soundcastle, Los Angeles

chronology
Night Passage
(1980)
Weather Report Procession
(1983)

Weather Report is an album released in 1982 by the fusion group Weather Report . It was deliberately named like the first album eleven years earlier, because it was intended as the framework and end point of the band - Zawinul and Shorter wanted to go their own way.

It is the last album with Jaco Pastorius and Peter Erskine in the rhythm section.

General

The music on the album was partly composed and was created with this line-up before the Japan tour in 1981 and the band's last tour in the USA; it was sometimes very complex and a lot was fixed due to the arrangements. Pieces from the album have already been played on both tours. The heart of the album is the three-part NYC suite. The piece begins with 41st Parallel , in which Erskine shows his groove. The second movement, The Dance, is a more traditional swing piece, but with synthesizer orchestration. The last movement, Crazy about Jazz, lives up to its name.

Track list

  1. Volcano for Hire (Zawinul) - 5:25
  2. Current Affairs (Zawinul) - 5:54
  3. NYC (41st Parallel / The Dance / Crazy about Jazz) (Zawinul) - 10:11
  4. Dara Factor One (Zawinul) - 5:25
  5. When It Was Now (Shorter) - 4:45
  6. Speechless (Zawinul) - 5:58
  7. Dara Factor Two (Zawinul / Shorter / Pastorius / Erskine / Thomas Jr.) - 4:27

reception

The album received three and a half stars out of five in the Down Beat : For the critic Frankie Nemko-Graham it was too keyboard and drum-heavy. Rolling Stone's JD Considine only gave three stars. For him, Pastorius played too differently on the album:

"At the heart of Weather Report's problem seems to be bassist Jaco Pastorius, whose playing oscillates between traditional bass lines and contrapuntal leads."

- JD Considine

Richard S. Ginell gave the album three out of five stars for Allmusic :

“With Pastorius in the background, the creative balance is tilting strongly towards Joe Zawinul. ... Although the level of creativity here seemed to be mediocre, the band could shock the ear with surprising new sounds. ... your ability to swing was never in doubt. "

- Richard S. Ginell

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Zawinul, "A Life in Jazz", p. 144
  2. a b c Weather Report: Annotated Discography
  3. allmusic.com: Review