What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Joseph K]

Allan Holdsworth live in Warsaw album.

His tone and overall style are just incredible.

[Joseph K]

It probably has something to do with not having listened to it as much as the rest of the album, but I have greatly enjoyed familiarising myself with 'Sanctuary' from Bitches Brew quite a bit this past week or so. Not only does it feature an achingly beautiful melody with awesome textures woven through it by Chick Corea and co. but when things get more intense, well things just get profoundly intense and the feeling is just of boundless ecstasy and love.

[Joseph K]

I am currently letting this fantastic, genius track wash right over me for the first time in a while.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYOsQQM-Xi8&list=RDkY4qQwd2XpM&index=22

[Jazzrook]

Johnny Hodges with John Coltrane in 1954:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=OCTXcUGKcw8

JR

[Ian Thumwood]

I am currently letting this fantastic, genius track wash right over me for the first time in a while.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYOs...d2XpM&index=22

Joseph

I have a CD of the live version of this track from the album "8:30" and was intrigued to hear the original, studio incarnation, I have to say that I think "Weather Report" does not represent Wayne Shorter to the greatest advantage and it has always struck me as being Joe Zawinul's show. It is hard to believe that this music is approaching 50 years old. I have three albums by the group in my collection and always think that the appeal centred around the pop-catchiness of the material as opposed to the level of creativity. "Black market" is the best of the bunch but I have always felt that the keyboards made this group sound very dated , very quickly. Getting in to jazz in the 1980's, "Weather Report" were seen as decidedly "old hat" and I can well remember the likes of The Wire running articles and reviews expressing a baffled opinion of how Shorter seemed less and less relevant.

Looking back, it seems strange to me that Shorter ever got involved with Weather Report. The quartet from the 2000's effectively was a game-changer. There are albums such as "Hi-Life" where Shorter seemed to bridge the idea of fusion and his wonderfully abstract style of composition which is under-rated but the quartet was the defining band of the 2000's and at least on a par with his 1960s work. As a group of improvising musicians , the quartet seemed to scale heights that few have attained. Every time I saw them live, I have been mesmerised. I live the idea of the spontaneity of the music they produced and the risks they seemed to take. By contrast, Shorter's work with Weather Report is sometimes betrayed by Zawinul's love of big band jazz so that Shorter became a luxury soloist with keyboards replacing the reeds and brass. To my ears, the album "Heavy Weather" really illustrates this point. The tunes are great (especially "A remark you made" ) but the disc is effectively big band jazz performed by a small group. The concept works better in the studio with live albums like "8:30 " having some great moments as well as those where the results can show a serious lack of taste. The live version of "Boogie Woogie waltz" is a mess. I find Weather Report to be a weird mixture of music of it's time, quite hip and savvy writing and also toe-curling cheesiness. I wish Wayne had gone acoustic earlier and maybe partnered up with someone like Paul Bley who could have steered him in more interesting directions that Joe Zawinul.

[Joseph K]

pop-catchiness of the material as opposed to the level of creativity

Seems like a false-dichotomy you're making if you ask me. I'm currently listening to the first disk of the boxed set of Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives and Sevens - wasn't this jazz the pop music of its time? And what about the Beatles? Louis Armstrong, the Beatles - amazing music with pop-catchiness.

I have always felt that the keyboards made this group sound very dated , very quickly

But not as dated as the piano - that thing goes back much further!

[Joseph K]

I was listening to the end of Sunday at the Village Vanguard by Bill Evans and was struck by how beautiful 'Jade Visions' is, so I'm listening to it again. Something Mahlerian about some of its harmonies.

[CGR]

Looking back, it seems strange to me that Shorter ever got involved with Weather Report.

The 70s were not a good time for acoustic jazz. The story as told in the biography of Shorter ("Footprints" by Michelle Mercer) is that he wanted to set up his own acoustic band post-Miles Davis but his management and agents could not get sufficient bookings to justify a Wayne Shorter Quartet project. They encouraged him down the electric fusion path and into what became Weather Report. According to the book, he was quite happy to take that advice and go with the flow.

[Joseph K]

The 70s were not a good time for acoustic jazz. The story as told in the biography of Shorter ("Footprints" by Michelle Mercer) is that he wanted to set up his own acoustic band post-Miles Davis but his management and agents could not get sufficient bookings to justify a Wayne Shorter Quartet project. They encouraged him down the electric fusion path and into what became Weather Report. According to the book, he was quite happy to take that advice and go with the flow.

Well, whatever motives one might ascribe to the direction Shorter took, in the final analysis the only question that matters is - does the music sound good? For me, it's a resounding 'yes!' - also, Joe Zee stated Shorter was integral part of Weather Report - no Wayne, no Weather Report.

Speaking of which, I am currently listening to Weather Report live in Montreux on youtube.

[Serial_Apologist]

For me the early Weather Report was the best - arguably peaking with "Live In Tokyo" in which the band - which was really an electronic free jazz unit up to that time - achieved levels of energy, spontaneous inspiration, interactive coherence and textural uses of electronics at levels equivalent to Miles Davis's "Live-Evil" live sides, and unachievable in terms of sonic and psychoacoustic reach with just acoustic instruments imv. And the nadir was the ironically appropriately-titled "Rock Bottom" of 6 years further down the road with its half-hearted improvising, robotic backbeats and handclaps. Probably the prime originator of my aversion to clapalongs! I think Zawinul was on record in saying that after the early free workouts he felt he needed the dependability of larger compositional frameworks in case the improvisational element sagged - which clearly he felt it must have done. Sad really, notwithstanding the strong qualities in some of the composed stuff. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with emulating big band arrangements using synthesisers etc. While this could be accused of substituting for giving musicians work, there are, again, possibilities of expanding sonorities, which can even be fed back into the acoustic realm, as Shorter attempted to do with his later big band - albeit with mixed results in my opinion. It's hard to work out who had the greater influence on the other: Wayne on Zawinul or vice-versa, in the compositional domain. There is definitely what one might call as Wayne Shorter compositional style emerging during and post- Weather Report that is distinctive in terms of harmonic processes in particular from 60s Miles and Blue Note period Shorter; it is instantly detectable in others subsequently, here, in America and around the world - and as we know Wayne has been given to re-working his stuff over long periods, rather as has his friend and Herbie Hancock.

[Joseph K]

S_A, there is no album entitled 'Rock Bottom'. Perhaps you mean Mr Gone?

There's clapping in 'Boogie Woogie Waltz' - just one year after the Live in Tokyo. I've actually not heard Live in Tokyo - from the sounds of it, I should really check it out. I have the two boxed sets of Weather Report albums on Columbia, which cover pretty much all the studio ones except for the last few. Plus I have a boxed set of live performances which cover the years 1978-1981 called The Legendary Live Tapes - from what I recall of it (I should probably give it another spin!) it's definitely not half-hearted. And the beat provided by Peter Erskine is most certainly not robotic.

I pretty much like or love music from every period of Weather Report's oeuvre!

[Joseph K]

I've just put on the first disk of the Legendary Live Tapes. People who don't like the studio albums of this time ought to check it out! This tune - the second which I have on now - features extended solos, and is like electric post-bop...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXj2fAj937M

[Serial_Apologist]

S_A, there is no album entitled 'Rock Bottom'. Perhaps you mean Mr Gone?

There's clapping in 'Boogie Woogie Waltz' - just one year after the Live in Tokyo. I've actually not heard Live in Tokyo - from the sounds of it, I should really check it out. I have the two boxed sets of Weather Report albums on Columbia, which cover pretty much all the studio ones except for the last few. Plus I have a boxed set of live performances which cover the years 1978-1981 called The Legendary Live Tapes - from what I recall of it (I should probably give it another spin!) it's definitely not half-hearted. And the beat provided by Peter Erskine is most certainly not robotic.

I pretty much like or love music from every period of Weather Report's oeuvre!

Mr Gone - what was my senile old mind thinking of? Robert Wyatt, of course!v

Handclaps put an automatic straightjacket on anything with more than an infantile beat, though that said, I do remember Chick Corea subdividing audiences to try to get polyrhythmic handclaps underway on one of his more complex samba charts, with very funny disastrous consequences!!! But yes, with WR there's always good to be found among indifferent, and one wouldn't be without the former.

[Joseph K]

Bill Evans - Sunday at the Village Vanguard

Can't wait for the complete thing to arrive in the post!

[Ian Thumwood]

For me the early Weather Report was the best - arguably peaking with "Live In Tokyo" in which the band - which was really an electronic free jazz unit up to that time - achieved levels of energy, spontaneous inspiration, interactive coherence and textural uses of electronics at levels equivalent to Miles Davis's "Live-Evil" live sides, and unachievable in terms of sonic and psychoacoustic reach with just acoustic instruments imv. And the nadir was the ironically appropriately-titled "Rock Bottom" of 6 years further down the road with its half-hearted improvising, robotic backbeats and handclaps. Probably the prime originator of my aversion to clapalongs! I think Zawinul was on record in saying that after the early free workouts he felt he needed the dependability of larger compositional frameworks in case the improvisational element sagged - which clearly he felt it must have done. Sad really, notwithstanding the strong qualities in some of the composed stuff. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with emulating big band arrangements using synthesisers etc. While this could be accused of substituting for giving musicians work, there are, again, possibilities of expanding sonorities, which can even be fed back into the acoustic realm, as Shorter attempted to do with his later big band - albeit with mixed results in my opinion. It's hard to work out who had the greater influence on the other: Wayne on Zawinul or vice-versa, in the compositional domain. There is definitely what one might call as Wayne Shorter compositional style emerging during and post- Weather Report that is distinctive in terms of harmonic processes in particular from 60s Miles and Blue Note period Shorter; it is instantly detectable in others subsequently, here, in America and around the world - and as we know Wayne has been given to re-working his stuff over long periods, rather as has his friend and Herbie Hancock.

I think their later stuff is just a sad reflection of the state of jazz at the time. I was getting into jazz just at the point when their popularity had almost tipped over in to pop and it was not long before they had lost a lot of jazz credibility. There are moments on "8:30" where you can sense that they had become gimmicky and that the show was as much about the visuals and the music given the strange point of audience adulation on the live elements of that set. I was not surprised that the risible "Orange Lady" track had been removed from the CD re-issue and the subtle qualities of a great disc like "Black market" were missing. Some of Shorter's compositions for Weather Report were revisited by the quartet and demonstrate his quality as a composer.

I find "Weather Report" to be an odd band. There are records I love yet there are also elements which I find off-putting and perhaps reflect the need to appeal to a broader audience. I have to say that listening to their music in the end, you understand why the likes of Wynton Marsalis happened and can see that others who followed a less jazz-rock path might have had more to say at the time. It might seen heretical to say this but I think the Europeans (including Brits) probably managed to fuse jazz and rock in a way that was more interesting than groups like Weather Report. Quite interesting to contrast with a group like Eberhard Weber's "Colours" , very different in it's approach and perhaps as equally antiquated these days yet more considered than Weather Report's later excesses. Not my favourite kind of jazz and like a lot of Swing Era stuff, you have to filter out the pap to get to the decent stuff.