Vinyl Report on Weather Report

[Tenor Freak]

Last and definitely least is 1985's effort, Sportin' Life.




There are some nice moments on this but it's obvious the band is flagging, because this is a sub-standard album. There's not much in the way of truly memorable soloing. Shorter has little involvement in proceedings although he is credited with a couple of compositions. Most of the material is by Zawinul as usual, with a couple of exceptions. The world music influences are very strong as well, and there's another song, sung by new percussionist Mino Cinelu, Confians, which is forgettable, and an instrumental version of Marvin Gaye's What's Going On which is less so.

Weather Report put out one more LP before officially calling it a day. Clearly they had run their course.



Here's a link (buried amidst six LPs' worth of material) the best track, a duet between Wayne and Joe, Face on the Barroom Floor. You'll have to go to 1:57:16 to hear it, though.

Thanks for all the comments - I'll try to get back with some considered responses. I hope you "enjoyed" this as much as I.

[Lateralthinking1]

I have enjoyed it very much and have learnt quite a lot. Classical music doesn't carry a burden in being associated with specific time periods. That is mainly because its placing in time is based on the music itself rather than other associations.

I fully understand how in other music, including jazz orientated music - predominantly 20th century and much of it made during our lifetimes - that there are all kinds of cross-cutting cultural references. Technological development from the early 1900s, and short-term fashions in technology, also make a difference. Some music will always be heard through tin cans and other music will always be synthesised. A key question is how any music will stand in a hundred years irrespective of technical and cultural references.

And I think one test will be the extent to which it became frozen in time and the extent to which it became "a working document". It seems to me that Zawinul in particular now has rather unexpected currency and that this must matter in the longer term.

[Tenor Freak]

As a post-script until I can get the time to post a full reply on this thread, here's a South Bonk Show first broadcast in 1984 (which I missed when it was on...just before I started listening to jazz more seriously)

[Serial_Apologist]

As a post-script until I can get the time to post a full reply on this thread, here's a South Bonk Show first broadcast in 1984 (which I missed when it was on...just before I started listening to jazz more seriously)

Great - but a South BONK Show, TF???

(Wish I was there... )

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

With Melvyn Bragg...in drag?

I'll pass on that!

BN.

[Tenor Freak]

Given your comments on "Rumba Mama", I think I can guess your reaction to this from Aziz Sahmaoui & University of Gnawa last year but it is worth a quick try anyway:

Actually that was OK - he had worked with Zawinul and clearly remembered the experience fondly. My comment about "Rumba Mama" wasn't about the piece per se, but that in comparison with the other compositions on the disc, it is lightweight and struck me as filler.

[Tenor Freak]

I quite like some of the Weather Report records but never bothered to acquire any although a fried loaned be "8.30" when I was getting in to jazz. There are tracks on that such as "Brown Street" which are terrific but there is also a grand-standing nature of some of the tunes such as "Thanks for the memory" which seem staged. However, the problem for me is Zawinul , not only because the keyboard sounds have dated but also because I think he was always edging mor towards World Music and away from jazz. I'm never convinced by him. It's wierd how some jazz seems timeless (Basie, Miles, etc) whereas other bands or musicians seem very much locked in to their decade. Weather Report always seems to sound so 1970's but in a really bad way. They are the like flares and Paisely kipper ties put to music! Listening to Weather Report is an experience I would liken to listening to Bix Beiderbecke insofar that there are moments of greatness but also of cringe-making dreadfulness such as the crooners who were bolted on to those sessions. Weather Report are a soundtrack to the three-day week, power shortages, Wilson & Heath and bloody Starsky & Hutch. The same goes for the British jazz-rock bands and maybe even Eberhard Weber's "Colours" although I quite like some of his music. However, I cannot get out of my mind when listening to these bands that all this stuff is within a heartbeat of sounding like Rick Wakeman.

I do think that Weather Report and the whole Jazz-rock thing is very much a generational appeal. When I was getting in to jazz in the early 80's this stuff was universally slated . Even after Wayne left WR, he was still producing clinkers like "Phantom Navigator" - when this music came out I had never listened to his 60's work and was more interested in the contemporary scene. I just don't think these bands were that great.

For shame! I think Phantom Navigator is a great LP! (BTW Joy Ryder is even better.) I also disagree about the sounds of the 70s. Zawinul's synth sounds from those days, especially on the ARP 2600 monosynth, are timeless. Electronic music of today - the 21st Century AKA TEH FUTURE - still uses them. Zawinul (and Hancock, Hammer etc) got there first. Zawinul's keys only start dating terribly when he reaches the 80s.

As for this stuff being "universally slated" - perhaps that was the case down in Southampton but in London it certainly was not. Remember it was Tim Whitehead who taught me how to play Man in the Green Shirt, he also workshopped various Chick Corea stuff with us too.

[Tenor Freak]

I have enjoyed it very much and have learnt quite a lot. Classical music doesn't carry a burden in being associated with specific time periods. That is mainly because its placing in time is based on the music itself rather than other associations.

I fully understand how in other music, including jazz orientated music - predominantly 20th century and much of it made during our lifetimes - that there are all kinds of cross-cutting cultural references. Technological development from the early 1900s, and short-term fashions in technology, also make a difference. Some music will always be heard through tin cans and other music will always be synthesised. A key question is how any music will stand in a hundred years irrespective of technical and cultural references.

And I think one test will be the extent to which it became frozen in time and the extent to which it became "a working document". It seems to me that Zawinul in particular now has rather unexpected currency and that this must matter in the longer term.

Interesting comments, Lat1. Funny, I thought that one theme in the development of classical music was that technology did change over time, for example the invention of the clarinet, or the invention of the Boehm system on the flute, or valves on brass instruments. But things seem to move very slowly; they're only just coming to terms with the invention of the saxophone, it seems. (I say this as a saxophone player who wishes the instrument had more currency in the symphony orchestra. Being a classical saxophonist is like being a jazz cellist - yes they exist but uneasily.)

I agree with you that Zawinul and Weather Report will gain more importance as time goes on. I think some of Zawinul's sounds are essential, and because of Weather Report's popularity his influence is widespread and probably growing.

[Serial_Apologist]

For shame! I think Phantom Navigator is a great LP! (BTW Joy Ryder is even better.) I also disagree about the sounds of the 70s. Zawinul's synth sounds from those days, especially on the ARP 2600 monosynth, are timeless. Electronic music of today - the 21st Century AKA TEH FUTURE - still uses them. Zawinul (and Hancock, Hammer etc) got there first. Zawinul's keys only start dating terribly when he reaches the 80s.

As for this stuff being "universally slated" - perhaps that was the case down in Southampton but in London it certainly was not. Remember it was Tim Whitehead who taught me how to play Man in the Green Shirt, he also workshopped various Chick Corea stuff with us too.

I tend to agree, TF.

This year, in contrast with most Xmases when I dig out all the seasonal music, I've been going over all my late 80s/early '70s jazz rock and prog rock vinyl. Admittedly some of the latter is pretty dire - I find I have five King Crimson albums in my vaults - but by no means all; and it is always worth reviewing stuff one may have overlooked for quite some time - but I did go over the LPs with meths and cotton buds, of whose renewal properties I was made aware a couple of years ago, and thought this to be the time for a spot of nostalgia. What never ceases to amaze me is the imaginative range of expressive possibilities to which still primitive electronics were exploited, Soft Machine and some of its spin offs displaying an array of uses to which feedback, echo, reverb, ring modulation, or merely the contrasts of sonority afforded by Fender Rhodes and Hohner electric pianos as against the various organs available at the time. And of course there was the simple early device for octave duplication used by Ian Underwod in The Mothers, and Elton Dean and Lol Coxhill at that time, and Miles's wah-wah attachment. Even the humble Moog could be put to imaginative use. Free jazz and free improv musicians have often made highly creative adaptations and extensions of traditional jazz and other instruments: one exemplification was to be found in Tony Oxley's self-patented electronic drum kit, and the extraordinary intermeshing of sounds achieved by his group on "Ichnos" in 1971 with Paul Rutherford, Evan Parker, Derek Bailey and Barry Guy - not forgetting AMM and the Music Improvisation Company, which included Jamie Muir, subsequently to be with King Crimson where he taught Bill Bruford a few ways to escape being a mere rock drummer. There was a fruitful exchange of ideas and practices between the avant-garde back then - classical and free improv - and some jazz rock fusion, more particularly here and in Europe at that time than in the States - which is less apparent on today's scene, though Troyka would be one group I would cite as picking up these ideas once more.