Weather Report, jazz fusion supergroup, weren't the sort of thing young cool kids were listening to in 1977, yet a good friend lent me this at the time and I enjoyed it immensely.
Wayne Shorter (sax) and Joe Zawinul (keyboards) were ex-Miles Davis acolytes who founded the band, and by the time of this their seventh album, they had recruited bass legend Jaco Pastorius and Alex Acuna and Monolo Badrena on drums and percussion,
Not that I knew any of this 'Miles Davis stuff' at the time, I just liked a lot of the music, and unlike some of my schoolfriends wasn't sneering at the mention of jazz.
This became Weather Report's most successful album, reaching no 30 on the Billboard charts, quite afeat for a jazz album in 1977.
The album opens with the best known of their pieces, Birdland, a Zawinul composition, which starts with Zawinul's keyboard set up, being gradually joined by the rest of the band, before Shorter picks up the tune's lively sax-led theme. The mood slows down on the next piece, Zawinul's A Remark You Made, another one where Shorter takes the lead with some languid sax, interspersed with Pastorius' liquid bass. Pastorius' Teen Town, is a little more funky, and understandably, the composer's bass plays a driving part in this piece. Shorter's Harlequin is a lovely piece, where Zawinul's keyboards do most of the heavy lifting until the run out in the final minute.
There's a complete change of style for Rumba Mama, a live recording, composed and performed by Acuna and Badrena, with just Badrena's Latin vocals and percussion. It almost serves as a half-time brak in the album, before we're back with Palladium, a Shorter composition, which showcases his sax performance in a pleasant, but not overwhelming piece, then into The Juggler, a Zawinul composition, where the keyboards lead eventually into a catchy theme, before we finish with Havona, a Pastorius piece which comes to a fitting climax around Shorter's sax, Zawinul's piano all underpinned by Pastorius' bass.
4* - a classic jazz-fusion album, which I've enjoyed for decades
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