Weather Report
Weather Report was an American jazz fusion band active from 1970 to 1986. The band was founded in 1970 by Austrian keyboardist Joe Zawinul, American saxophonist Wayne Shorter, Czech bassist Miroslav Vitouš, American drummer Alphonse Mouzon as well as American percussionists Don Alias and Barbara Burton. The band was initially co-led by co-frontmen Zawinul and Shorter but, subsequently as the 1970s progressed, Zawinul largely became the sole musical leader of the group. Other prominent members at various points in the band's lifespan included Jaco Pastorius, Alphonso Johnson, Victor Bailey, Chester Thompson, Peter Erskine, Airto Moreira, and Alex Acuña. Throughout most of its existence, the band was a quintet consisting of Zawinul, Shorter, a bass guitarist, a drummer, and a percussionist.
This article is about the band. For other uses, see Weather report (disambiguation).
Weather Report
New York City, New York, U.S.
1970–1986
Joe Zawinul
Wayne Shorter
Jaco Pastorius
Miroslav Vitouš
Alphonse Mouzon
Don Alias
Airto Moreira
Muruga Booker
Dom Um Romão
Eric Gravatt
Greg Errico
Alphonso Johnson
Narada Michael Walden
Chester Thompson
Alex Acuña
Manolo Badrena
Peter Erskine
Robert Thomas Jr.
Omar Hakim
Victor Bailey
Mino Cinélu
Steve Gadd
Tony Williams
Andrew White
The band started as a free improvising jazz group with avant-garde and experimental electronic leanings (pioneered by Zawinul); when Vitouš left Weather Report (due mostly to creative disagreements), Zawinul increasingly steered the band towards a funky, edgy sound incorporating elements of R&B and native musics from around the world. Zawinul used the latest developments in synthesizer technology, and he took advantage of a large variety of sounds and tone colors to make the band stand out. During the first half of their career, Weather Report were seen as one of the defining acts in modern jazz, winning the DownBeat "best album award" five times in a row.
Alongside bands such as Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever, and Herbie Hancock's Headhunters (all with members inspired by and partially responsible for the fusion-era work of Miles Davis), Weather Report is widely considered one of the defining bands of the jazz fusion genre.
History[edit]
1970: Inception and formation[edit]
Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter had first met and become friends in 1959 while they were playing in Maynard Ferguson's Big Band. Zawinul went on to play with Cannonball Adderley's group in the 1960s, while Shorter joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and then, in 1964, Miles Davis' second great quintet. During this decade, both men made names for themselves as being among the best composers in jazz.
Zawinul later joined Shorter in contributing to the initial fusion music recordings of Miles Davis, and both men were part of the studio groups that recorded the key Davis albums In a Silent Way (1969) and Bitches Brew (1970).[1] Weather Report was initially formed to explore a more impressionistic and individualistic music (or, as Zawinul put it, "away from all that eight bars shit and then you go to the bridge...").[3]
There's some dispute over how Weather Report initially formed. According to Zawinul, it began when he and Shorter recruited another Miles Davis associate, the classically trained Czech-born bass player Miroslav Vitouš, who had previously played with each of them separately (as well as with Herbie Mann, Bob Brookmeyer, Stan Getz, and Chick Corea). According to Vitouš himself, it was he and Shorter who actually founded Weather Report, with Shorter bringing in Zawinul afterwards.[4] Whichever story is true, it was those three musicians – all composers – who formed the initial core of the project.
To complete the band, Zawinul, Shorter and Vitouš brought in McCoy Tyner's former drummer Alphonse Mouzon and began recording their debut album while looking for a full-time auxiliary percussionist.[1] The initial recruits were session percussion player Don Alias and symphony orchestra percussionist Barbara Burton. During recording, Alias quarreled with Zawinul (allegedly due to Zawinul being too dictatorial over the percussion approach) and the innovative Brazilian percussionist Airto Moreira (yet another Davis alumnus) was brought in to complete the record. Guitarist John McLaughlin was also invited to join the group, but decided to pursue his solo career, instead.
1971–1972: Avant-garde collective[edit]
Weather Report's debut album Weather Report featured a softer sound than would be the case in later years, predominantly using acoustic bass, with Shorter exclusively playing soprano saxophone. It built on the avant-garde experiments which Zawinul and Shorter had pioneered with Miles Davis on Bitches Brew, including an avoidance of head-and-chorus composition in favor of continuous rhythm and movement. DownBeat magazine described the album as "music beyond category".[5]
In 1972, Weather Report released its second album, I Sing the Body Electric.[1] The first side featured new studio recordings, while the second side was taken from live recordings of a concert in Tokyo, featuring the full-band lineup of Zawinul, Shorter, Vitouš, Eric Gravatt, and Dom Um Romão (and later available in full as the 1972 Japan-only double album Live in Tokyo).[6] The studio side used extended versions of the band including various guest performers, suggesting that Weather Report was not necessarily an integral jazz band, but might possibly work as an expandable project set up to realise the music of its three composers. The album also featured Zawinul's first use of a synthesizer (an instrument with which he would become synonymous within jazz) and of sound effects.
I Sing the Body Electric also showed the first signs of a shift in the balance of control within the band, away from the more collective approach of the debut album. During the following year, this tendency would develop further.
1973: Move towards groove[edit]
On 1973's Sweetnighter, Weather Report began to abandon the primarily acoustic group improvisation format, and the band started to take a new direction. Primarily at Zawinul's instigation, Weather Report became more jazz funk- and groove-oriented, drawing more heavily on R&B influences and dense electric keyboard work while adding more structure to both the prewritten and the improvisational sections.
Releases since the band's breakup[edit]
A "post band" Weather Report double CD called Live and Unreleased was made available in 2002, featuring vintage live recordings made during the late 1970s/early 1980s with various personnel. In September 2006, Columbia/Legacy released a Weather Report boxed set, Forecast: Tomorrow. It includes three CDs of mostly previously released material (from 1970 to 1985, excluding This is This!) and a DVD of the entire September 28, 1978, performance (with Erskine and Pastorius) in Offenbach, Germany, not previously available. A DVD video of the 1976 Montreux Jazz Festival performance (featuring the Heavy Weather lineup of Pastorius, Acuna, and Badrena) has become available, as well. Columbia/Legacy have also re-released the 1984 Live in Japan concert on DVD.
In 2011, the Zawinul estate, in conjunction with an independent label, released a 40th-anniversary commemorative trilogy of previously unavailable Weather Report live shows: In March Live in Berlin 1975 was released both on vinyl and as a CD/DVD set; in June the Live in Offenbach 1978 DVD was re-released together with a previously unavailable double CD of the complete show; in October Live in Cologne 1983 was released as both DVD and double CD.