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Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZWEATHER REPORTFusion band co-led by Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter, formed '71 after Zawinul had worked with Cannonball Adderley, Shorter with Art Blakey, both with Miles Davis. All of their 15 albums charted in top 200 LPs USA, making them the most successful electric jazz group of all; but their sales had an arc from the first LP (at no. 191) up to the top 40 to the last (no. 195); their time-scape had less and less to do with jazz, as though they were experiencing it from a distance. The composer/keyboardist Zawinul eventually eclipsed the jazzman Shorter and the idea seemed to be to make as much as possible of very little: though some of their work shimmered and twinked impressively, it may have been very much of its time. The group ranged in size from five to nine; there were sometimes two bassists, on Mr Gone three drummers incl. Tony Williams, Steve Gadd. First four LPs incl. Miroslav Vitous on bass: Weather Report '71, I Sing The Body Electric '72 (one side live in Japan, where two-disc live set was released) were poorly mixed, came out of Davis's late-'60s style, but with more prettiness; Sweetnighter '73 and Mysterious Traveller '74 saw the weather becoming more purple. On Tale Spinnin' '75 Zawinul used a monophonic ARP synthesizer, on Black Market '76 an Oberheim polyphonic (with Jaco Pastorius on two tracks) and the weather became Heavy Weather '77, their biggest seller at no. 30, with Pastorius taking over on bass: his undoubted talent was indulged too much in a setting that was really about a quasi-orchestral sound rather than solos; his solos (and Shorter's) were longer on stage. Mr Gone '78 was followed by two-disc 8:30 (three sides live), Night Passage '80, Weather Report '82, Procession '83, Domino Theory '84 (incl. 'The Peasant', their best swan-song, according to Richard Cook in The Wire), Sportin' Life '85 and This Is This! '86. By that time Zawinul and Shorter each needed to do something else; to judge from reviews of Shorter's records and gigs, he needed time to come down from the meteorological balloon. |