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by Ian Patterson
Elegant People: A History Of The Band Weather Report Curt Bianchi 496 Pages ISBN: 978-1-4930-5999-7 Backbeat Books 2021 Few bands hold a place in jazz history quite like Weather Report, the band formed in 1971 by Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter and Miroslav Vitous. The term “jazz-fusion" could have been coined for Weather Report, yet it was never an entirely adequate descriptor for a band that absorbed so many influences and evolved accordingly over ...
Continue ReadingThe 1979 Playboy Jazz Festival
by Jon Deshler
I began producing my Jazz Passages Archive when I was 14 in the '70s, as a young trumpet student and photography enthusiast growing up in the San Fernando Valley. In June of 1979 serendipity aligned with a high school buddy/usher, which led to me attending the first Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl. At 16 years old I had one day of roaming around the crowd at the Bowl, listening, and attempting to get some decent pics on film ...
Continue ReadingWeather Report: Heavy Weather
by Sacha O'Grady
Weather Report were one of the earliest jazz fusion groups to emerge at the beginning of the '70s. They were rare in that, like Herbie Hancock's Headhunters, they didn't have a guitarist to light the fire and excite the audience as was the case with Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return to Forever; instead, they relied, in addition to pure instrumental virtuosity, upon intelligent compositions. The band's founding members were none other than Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter, two exceptional musicians who ...
Continue ReadingClaude Nobs: We All Came Out To Montreux...
by Ian Patterson
Montreux Jazz Festival is fifty. It's a significant milestone and cause for celebration. No doubt there will be an added festive element to this year's edition of the festival, founded by Claude Nobs--along with pianist Géo Voumard and writer René Langel--in 1967. Yet for many, the celebrations will be tinged with sadness due to the absence of Nobs, who died in a skiing accident in 2013. Nobs may have passed, but his legend, his spirit, lives on, in the festival ...
Continue ReadingBlack Market
by Jeff Winbush
As Weather Report returned to the studio to cut their next album the band was yet again in flux. Gone from 1975's Tale Spinnin' line up were percussionist Alyrio Lima and drummer Ndugu Leon Chancler. Zawinul explained the latest comings-and-goings in a 1976 interview, “We're always happy with the group, because if we're not happy, we change it. There are a lot of musicians out there in the world. All the people who have played with us are ...
Continue ReadingWeather Report: The Legendary Live Tapes: 1978-1981
by Vic Albani
Dopo la morte di Joe Zawinul non si era praticamente più mosso nulla tranne forse nella mente di Ivan Zawinul (uno dei figli del geniale tastierista austriaco) che era partito (bene) con l'idea di pubblicare di tanto in tanto un disco con le migliori tra le tante avventure live di uno dei gruppi musicali più amati e importanti dell'ultimo mezzo secolo. Per motivi che nemmeno interessano a questa recensione, quell'idea abortì quasi subito. Dei Weather Report sembrò ...
Continue ReadingWeather Report: The Legendary Live Tapes 1978-1981
by Doug Collette
The Legendary Live Tapes 1978-1981 is a stellar package of Weather Report concert recordings focusing on that phase of this groundbreaking group's career where they were truly rock stars visiting from a jazz world. It stands as further affirmation of the constant change implied in their name as much as their continual transcendence of the jazz-rock fusion genre. The unusual size and shape of the 5.5 x 6 inch package thus stands as a very metaphor of Weather ...
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