We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago…
By the time the early 70’s rolled around jazz music had evolved to a point that would be hard for the earliest proponents of the art-form to recognize. Even though Bix and Pops had improvised solos in their early work…they and the other pioneers still used a form and a melody that they would almost always circle back to. As Miles Davis and others experimented with different time signatures, different instrumentation, hell, sometimes doing away with the melody all together, there were a number of young musicians that were following those bread crumbs. And they were combining into groups that could paint a sound using all of the colors available to them. Groups like Return To Forever, Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters, The Mahavishnu Orchestra featuring John McLaughlin and Soft Machine pushed the envelope…as did Weather Report, who released their debut Lp in 1971.
The original band was made up of Joe Zawinul on keyboards, Wayne Shorter on Sax, Miroslav Vitous on bass and Alphonse Mouzon on drums. The line up changed over the years adding and discarding various percussionists and having the gifted Jaco Pastorius doing his wonderous things on his fretless bass.
Zawinul and Shorter had worked with Miles Davis on his genre shattering work Bitches Brew…
and brought alot of that experience to the new band.
The band also became more funky and commercial over the years as evidenced by their version of “Birdland” which you probably are familiar with from 1977.
But the debut LP was more ethereal than that. More moody and dense. And certainly harder to appreciate for those whose idea of jazz was big band swing or even hard bop. But for those who would take the chance…it has it’s rewards. It’s hard to imagine the creativity needed to keep improvisation like this from going off the rails…but they do it. Zawinul using his synths to deliver what he called “all the sounds the world generates”. Shorter plays all soprano sax on this LP, and used his time in Weather Report to write and record more “free jazz” styles…your tastes may vary on his decisions. Free Jazz can be like scotch whiskey. Learn to appreciate it and it can deliver tasty results.
But my favorite parts of this Lp are delivered by the rhythm section. Everyone will rave about the work of Pastorius during the later years of the band….but don’t discount the creative bass work of Vitous on this one. Maybe my bass playing buddy Doug Andrews can respond on what he hears in these grooves? And then Mouzon adds in tasty drum fills to complete the package. Although Mouzon would only play on this one LP and Vitous would leave a couple of years later after disagreements with Zawinul over the direction of the band…their contributions to the LP cannot be overlooked.
Listen to this record through a good pair of headphones…or put it on while you’re working at your computer…and without even realizing it…you will be subconsciously medicated with the trance like passages and swirling aural colors. Enjoy!
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