Weather Report: Black Market

[Joe G]

  "Tale Spinnin'" is the one I like the MOST. . . it's special.  Must be the berimbau! 

I see what you mean. What a great album!

Last night, along with TS, MT, and BM, I gave a listen to Christian McBride's latest, Vertical Vision. Weather Report is all over it! They even cover Boogie Woogie Waltz. There's one tune on there where McBride comes very close to copping the bassline from Barbary Coast. What's interesting is that although I can plainly hear elements of the WR sound, the overall approach is not the same. More conventional, perhaps. I haven't heard the original Boogie Woogie Waltz, so I can't make a comparison yet. Here it's treated as a vamp to jam out on (and jam they do).

While thinking about and listening to WR this week, I realized that the Pat Metheny Group has also borrowed a lot from them, although I believe that what they took was more conceptual as opposed to concrete musical ideas; things like having an international group and incorporating folk music from around the world, for instance. (BTW, wasn't it Miles that said that the best groups are always mixed?)

Another group that I always knew wouldn't have even existed were it not for Weather Report was Tribal Tech, with Scott Henderson (who, I just found out, played with Zawinul) and Gary Willis. Gary is straight out of Jaco, and likewise Scott Kinsey on keyboards comes directly from Zawinul. The influence was undeniable, though Tribal Tech was much more fusion in the sense of jazz-rock with Henderson on guitar, with much less "world" music in the mix.

I think you can listen to Weather Report and still call yourself elitist (but not narrow-minded) if you like, for WR was surely one of the elite groups of the past 30 years!

Thanks to everyone for making this such a stimulating discussion. :rsmile: :rsmile:

Edited May 2, 2003 by Joe G

[Joe G]

Well, I guess that's why there is more than one band in the world. And thank God for that!

[Joe G]

Hey Jim, you'd better unpin this thread and put up Rooster's AOTW, or there will be grumblings of favoritism!

[jazzbo]

Listening this week for the first time to the Philly band "Catalyst." Seems to me that some of this material is very influenced (or developed simultaneously unconnected, but that seems dubious) by the Weather Report of the time.

[pryan]

Was out last night at a friend's cabin along with a crowd of about six people. I noticed a couple of boxes of Lps, so instinctively I started flipping through them. Mostly pop/funk/soul stuff from the seventies and earlier. But happily I found a copy of BLACK MARKET and put it on.... noticed a few heads nodding in approval, another friend told me this morning that he was going to seek out some Weather Report for himself. By the way, parts of side one really (notably much of Zawinul's synth. work) seemed to stick in my head, when waking up periodically during the night.

[Tinnitus]

Jaco Pastorius interview (capitol radio, fall 1978), MP3

[Soul Stream]

I think it's time for me to backtrack on my original "anit-Weather Report" position. Note I still haven't heard any of the albums, but I happened to pick up the "Jaco" biography and am truely amazed by what I'm reading.

I've GOT to hear some Jaco and WR Now!

Sorry for my previous super-close-mindedness, but isn't that what these boards are good for? Changing your previously held beliefs that aren't based in fact.

Cheers once again to AOTW. For making me even THINK about RETHINKING!

[Joe G]

BRAVO!!

[bertrand]

Soul Stream,

I'm glad you are reverting your position! You won't regret it - some Weather Report is so-so, but most of it is kick-ass. When they were good, they were fantastic. Some of my favorite tracks:

Eurydice

Cucumber Slumber

Palladium

Boogie Woogie Waltz

Five Short Stories

Madagascar

I have a theory that Joe Zawinul's keyboard sound was partly influenced by John Patton's, especially John's work on That Certain Feeling.

Let me know what you think after you've absorbed some WR!

Bertrand.

[bertrand]

Oh, and the bio of Joe Zawinul is excellent - much better than the Jaco book, IMO.

Bertrand.

[J Larsen]

Okay, this thread convinced me to give Heavy Weather another chance. I still hate it. I mean REALLY hate it. It has nothing to do with it "not being jazz", a position I'm not interested in taking a stance on one way or the other. I just think it's bad. Maybe I'm just a little too young to understand its context (I was in my Sesame Street watching years when it was released), but to me it sounds not unlike something I'd expect to hear in the grocery store.

Given my pronounced dislike for Heavy Weather, would it be worthwhile for me to explore the earlier portion of their catalog or am I just not a Weather Report kind of guy?

[jazzbo]

Mr. Larsen, in my opinion the WR before Heavy Weather is different and better thant he WR after. That's just a personal thing, but Heavy Weather is probably my LEAST favorite (especially the way I feel in the last half a decade) of their output. So from my viewpoint, not liking that one doesn't mean you wouldn't like others. I'd recommend the first three or four, the self-titled, I Sing the Body Electric, Mysterious Traveler, Suitenighter, and Talespinning. . . .

Edited May 15, 2003 by jazzbo

[AfricaBrass]

I still like the stuff before Heavy Weather better too.

I'm trying to be as open minded as possible, but that album doesn't really grab me.

I do think it's cool that a lot of us are trying hard to open up ourselves to stuff we wouldn't normally have given a chance to. I've learned a lot just since this board started.

:rsmile:

[JSngry]

Get a copy of LIVE IN TOKYO by any means necessary.

[J Larsen]

Is that generally a tough disc to find? There's a shop near my office that has a couple copies. It's a double cd from Japan with a black cover, and not terribly expensive as I recall.

[jazzbo]

Live in Tokyo is available in several imported versions.. . .but there's been no domestic cd reissue.

It's among the very best of their works.

[JSngry]

It's an album that has never been released anywhere besides Japan, ever, as far as I know, going back to the LP version. It's some intense stuff - Side 2 of I SING THE BODY ELECTRIC is the "Readers Digest" version of this album. Nothing even remotely like the stereotypical WR "sound" to be found here - it's intense, borderline free music full of distortion and wild improvisational abandon. Besides Shorter, Zawinul, & Vitous, you got Eric Gravatt on drums and Dom Um Romao on percussion. It's one helluva wild ride.

As to whether or not it's difficult to find or not, I suppose not, not in these days of the Global Shopping Village, but in the Pre-Internet Era, it used to be a BITCH to find in all but the most urban areas. Iif the price is right, I'd pick it up ASAP. I don't think you'll regret it.

[Big Al]

Glad this topic is back up!

I finally picked up Mysterious Traveller and Tale Spinnin, and they are everything that you all said they would be, and everything I was hoping it would be. It really is a shame that Alphonso Johnson only lasted three albums with this group. IMHO, these two albums, plus BM, are the three essential discs from Weather Report (he said, oh-so-self-importantly, as if he were some kind of WR expert!)

Larsen, just to put things in perspective, I had no use for Heavy Weather, too; Black Market changed my mind dramatically. Listening to these three now, there is just so much that remains fresh about this music: the sense of searching and the thrill of discovery is fully evident.

PLus, some of those grooves are so...... dare I say it? GREEEEEEEEEEEAZY!!!!!

[J Larsen]

Thanks to everyone for the advice. Heavy Weather is a record I got before my BB days, back when I relied mostly on the Penguin guide and the guy behind the record counter for guidence when it came to jazz. My initial reaction to the album was "man, this group really sucked". Looks like I probably just picked the wrong album to start with.

[jazzbo]

Al, I agree that Al Johnson was a monster in WR, and my favorite of their bassists as well.

Live in Tokyo has been out on cd at least three times that I know of from Sony in Japan and French CBS. . . . The French version I have sounds pretty darned good, and was pretty cheap, about 19 bucks a year or so ago. The lps I have actually sound better though I think. . . darn it.

[Big Al]

Bringing this back up to say that, while I love Mysterious Traveller and Tale Spinnin', Black Market is still may favorite of the three, and I'm glad that BM was chosen as the AOW; mainly because had one of the other two been nominated, I might not have been so inclined to get all three, whereas BM was so good it made me want to hear the other two.

Still, great stuff and good grooves all around.

[Joe G]

Right on Al! I've been listening to those albums regularly; just yesterday in fact I had Mysterious Traveller and Black Market in the player. I love that first tune on MT, Nubian Sundance, is it? I often give that one repeated listenings. That part in the middle when it calms down and Wayne plays that beautiful melody on soprano, followed by that ascending synth tone, just kills me every time! And that groove! :rsmile: Live in Tokyo, Live and Unreleased, and Sweetnighter are on my short list.

Edit: I also wanted to mention Wayne's solo on Elegant People from BM. What can I say about it though? It's just so good. So much invention with just a series of short phrases. Listening to that I'm thinking, do I ever even come close to playing like that??? Amazing stuff.

Edited July 30, 2003 by Joe G

[DrJ]

I'll be pulling out my vinyl copy of BLACK MARKET to relisten, good idea to prompt a re-evaluation of this one! It always struck me as very much Zawinul's album (not in terms of soloing but for structure and tone) in the old days, but it's honestly been quite a few years since I listened.

In the meantime - re: the negative comments about HEAVY WEATHER, to paraphrase the immortal words of Mr. Hand in "Fast Times at Ridgement High" - what are you people, on dope?

Sure, more tightly arranged and pop oriented than what had come before, but a MONSTER pop album nonetheless. If only all pop music was this musical and refined and eminently hummable. Some of Zawinul and Shorter's best songwriting for the band, and Jaco is just all over the case (and to be honest, I've never enjoyed his playing much in more open-ended environments, in which he often takes every opportunity to show off - give me the Jaco of HEAVY WEATHER and Joni Mitchell's HEJIRA any day...I'm with you Big Al!).

Edited August 2, 2003 by DrJ

[JSngry]

Wayne's solo on Elegant People from BM. What can I say about it though? It's just so good. So much invention with just a series of short phrases. Listening to that I'm thinking, do I ever even come close to playing like that??? Amazing stuff.

Yep.

HELL yep!

[Joe G]

Just letting folks know that BMG now has Live and Unreleased in their catalog. Couldn't seem to find the bmg thread...