suprisingly lame weather report

[Guest akanalog]

i downloaded a german television broadcast today.

i guess i don't totally know my WR years-i saw a video a few years ago that was awesome-it seemed to be from the time of "heavy weather"-an album i don't like. i was hoping this '78 performance would feature this same band (acuna on drums, maybe badarena? on percussion and i guess jaco was the bassist)-this band was MOVING on the video i saw-just long rhythmic jams. much better than "heavy weather".

but anyway-this '78 show was the quartet with erskine and jaco. and i found it to be pretty uninteresting. i think maybe it was erskine rather than acuna and badarena which was the main problem. this '78 weather report group seemed like sort of a soulless unfunky fusion quartet with an overly technique-oriented rhythm section. and cheesy compositions to boot.

matters were not helped when both erskine and jaco took their shirts off halfway through the performance and jaco was jumping around like a doofus. erskine has a lot of chest hair!

i have always avoided CDs of this weather report incarnation, but would have assumed things would be more interesting in concert-guess not.

[Dan Gould]

You know, maybe its the fact that a hurricane is taking aim at South Florida, but I have to say that I read this thread topic as, "Can you believe how lame local weather reporting used to be?" which lead me to think, "No duh!"

Then I opened the thread and still wasn't enlightened very much.

[JSngry]

Source for this download, please!

I've got mixed emotions about this particular incarnation myself. I feel like Zawinul's concepts DEMAND a percussionist (or percussionists). And Jaco sometimes got, well....out of control, I think. Zawinul's natural machismo yang was always perfectly offset by Wayne's equally natural yin, and when Jaco went left, the balance got thrown off. And there were also the trappings of presentation in those days, too. Zawinul in particular was a big believer in "presentation", and Jaco needed no assistance there! So the whole balance of the group got a little skewered for a little while, I think.

But when Jaco was good, he was GREAT, and there were times when this quartet (and, later, quintet)functioned as one of those early Parker-Gillespie units - fast, furious virtuosity at the service of bold new ideas that nobody else was even coming close to comprehending, but that these guys dealt with as if it was second nature, which it no doubt was. That recent live set shows that, I think.

I've recently been on a Zawinul binge, spurred on by that new bio, and I've been revisiting all the WR and post-WR albums as part of it. I'm finding NIGHT PASSAGE and WEATHER REPORT (the second one) to be MUCH more rewarding (especially NIGHT PASSAGE) than I remember them, and 8:30 a little less. The addition of Bobby Thomas on percussion helps, no doubt, but so does Jaco not tripping out on these studio recordings like he sometimes did live. I saw them 6 or 7 times altogether, starting in 1975, pre-Jaco, and ending right at the tail end of the band. Both the most exciting and most bothersome shows were with Jaco. None were ever disappointing though, becasue the more weird Jaco got, the more aggressive Wayne played. GOTTA love that!

So, yeah, the quartet version of WR is probably my least favorite. but I'd still like to download that video!

[Guest akanalog]

i got it at bt.easytree.org

i have also gotten good audio CDs of live 70s WR performances.

sharingthegroove.org was good for this too but seems to be down right now...

i have been listening to a lot of live '73 and '75 weather report and some of it is pretty interesting...

which other bassists did you see, jsngry? al johnson and victor bailey? i think i like the johnson material a lot.

i must say that is one thing i do not like about the jaco years-too much solo jaco.

i think the live set you spoke of shows this-there are a lot of virtuoistic solo jaco features with him going through his bag of tricks. very boring to me.

[Guy Berger]

but anyway-this '78 show was the quartet with erskine and jaco. and i found it to be pretty uninteresting. i think maybe it was erskine rather than acuna and badarena which was the main problem. this '78 weather report group seemed like sort of a soulless unfunky fusion quartet with an overly technique-oriented rhythm section. and cheesy compositions to boot.

That's really the feeling I get from listening to most of 8:30.

Guy

[JSngry]

Yeah, I saw Alphonso (w/Daryl Brown & Dom Um, what a great gig THAT was!), then Jaco (the first time a week or so after BLACK MARKET came out. that was a TOTALLY different Jaco...), then Bailey. Mised Miroslav, unfortunately, and missed the tour(s) w/Greg Errico drumming. I'd LOVE to hear some boots of those!

Have to disagree about that live set, though. I get tired of Jaco's solo trickbag too (got tired of it back in the day, actually), but I think you can also hear what a great group player he was when he chose/was able to be. An ill-fated creature if ever there was one, so much brilliance and so much bullshit fighting it out every second, it seemed....

Thanks for the tips on those sites, btw. I'll be investigating.

[Guest akanalog]

jsngry you did not see chester thompson on the drums at all? i think a lot of the material i like is al johnson, chester thompson and maybe acuna on percussion.

[JSngry]

I saw Chester w/Jaco on that BLACK MARKET tour. It was nice!