WEATHER REPORT: 19 of their BEST

Without a doubt, Weather Report was the most innovative jazz ensemble of the twentieth century. That’s a big statement, I know, but there was no other group that compared in compositional or playing prowess, and few that reigned as long.  

L to R: Jaco Pastorius, Peter Erskine, Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter

         
The sixteen year history of Weather Report is well documented elsewhere, but briefly, the band was the brainchild of pianist Joe Zawinul, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, and bassist Miraslov Vitous in 1970, with the first album release during the same year. Despite the sensational response of the first six albums over six years and some changes in personnel, it was not until bassist Jaco Pastorius became a regular member of the band that they reached their full potential and produced their best work.

          The release in 1977 of their 7^th studio album, the multi-award winning album HEAVY WEATHER, cemented Weather Report’s position at the very top of jazz groups. Every track is superb. MR. GONE (1978), the second album with Jaco on board full time did nearly as well, and with the addition of new drummer Peter Erskine, they produced 8:30 (1979), what I consider to be their best album, one that contained live versions of tunes from prior albums. That group produced two more albums, NIGHT PASSAGE (1980) and WEATHER REPORT (1982). Zawinul and Shorter continued with a new group in 1983 and produced four more studio albums.

Best recordings:

          From HEAVY WEATHER (a truly inspired album), Birdland, A Remark You Made, both by Zawinul, and Teen Town by Pastorius are Weather Report at their very best. Shorter’s composition Palladium is also an exciting must-listen track. The solos in Pastorius’s Havona are all you need to understand why Shorter is considered the best soprano saxophone player, and Jaco absolutely the best bass player ever. Jaco’s solo is in the top one or two in the history of jazz.

          From MR. GONE, Jaco Pastorius’s  Punk Jazz takes off like a rocket, with Jaco all over the bass and Tony Williams on drums. Then it evolves into a rich chordal passage of the hippest voicings ever, in an incredible hard-swing beat, and a monster soprano solo by Shorter.

          From 8:30, Birdland and A Remark You Made (live versions) are prime examples of Weather Report’s peerless ensemble work and compositions. Zawinul wrote Birdland first for HEAVY WEATHER, but on 8:30 they change the tempo from the original straight eights to a driving jazz swing with Jaco’s wicked walking bass line and Peter Erskine’s drumming leading the way. Jaco’s laying down of the melody with harmonics on his fretless bass is nothing less than awesome. The energy and tempo intensify to a near breaking point toward the end. The entire album of 8:30 is a masterpiece. The live version of In a Silent Way, written originally by Zawinul and made famous by Miles Davis, is the other must-listen on 8:30. Zawinul and Shorter do it as a duet, and rarely have three minutes of jazz ever been so beautiful. The track Slang, also a must-listen tour de force, I’m saving for the full discussion of Jaco Pastorius in a separate blog posting.

          NIGHT PASSAGE is the most contemplative album of that group. Dream Clock is a must listen, with exquisite soprano by Shorter and melodic bass by Jaco. Zawinul’s arrangement of Rockin’ in Rhythm (the Ellington tune) is electric and supercharged with energy.

          WEATHER REPORT (1982) is the last album with Pastorius and Erskine. Must-listen tracks are Shorter’s Then It Was Now with its way-hip Caribbean funk beat, and Speechless, another touching ballad by Zawinul in the haunting style of so many of his ballads.

          PROCESSION (1983) takes off with three new sidemen: Victor Bailey on bass, Omar Hakim on drums and Jose Rossy on percussion. Shorter’s Plaza Real is outstanding. PROCESSION and the next album, DOMINO THEORY (1984) explore some new sounds, which, in my view, reach their peak with SPORTIN’ LIFE (1985), an album of beautiful rhythms and melody, and THIS IS THIS (1986), their final studio album. A must-listen track on SPORTIN’ LIFE is Corner Pocket with its driving beat full of great ‘kicks’, synthesized big-band sound, its uncomplicated melody and the F# surprise in the key of F. The other is What’s Going On, a sensitive cover of Marvin Gaye’s tune that brings back memories of Jaco’s direction with the group. The whole album is a delight.

          The must-listen off THIS IS THIS is the title tune This is This. It has a Michael Jackson-like funk-dance beat, a driving Santana guitar solo throughout, and Zawinul’s upbeat synth chord comping that could induce a dead person to get up and dance. While you’re at it, listen to I’ll Never Forget You, an exquisite ballad by Zawinul in memory of his parents, and a soft landing for Weather Report’s last album. Those nineteen tracks should get you started.

Also sample http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5c3H6LpLZI and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqashW66D7o&feature=fvwrel
See also: google: Greg Armbruster/Zawinul for an in depth interview with Joe Zawinul

KEITH JARRETT: a must-listen compilation

Trying to pick a favorite recording or performance by Keith Jarrett is like picking a favorite painting by Picasso or a favorite glass of wine. There are so many best examples, and choosing is so personal. However, I’m here to suggest to you that Jarrett’s most inspired playing occurred in the 1980s.

Jarrett is mostly an interpretive player, not a composer, although his compositions My Song off MY SONG, and So Tender (STANDARDS VOL 1; SONY VIDEO: STANDARDS VOL 1) are gems of harmony, chordal progression, and rhythm.

His best work? An absolute best recording? Impossible to choose, but his two solos with Charles Lloyd in Forest Flower are as good as any piano solo in the history of jazz. They let loose with a tasteful right hand, soaring, and full chordal rhythms. He has a degree of control over the keyboard, possibly from his early classical training, that no other jazz player has ever possessed (his ‘classical’ recordings attest to that fact).

In the early 1980s he put together a trio with Jack DeJohnette on drums and Gary Peacock on bass. That trio became one of the longest reigning groups of its type. They still record at the time of this writing in 2011. The trio’s first albums, STANDARDS VOLUME I and VOLUME II were released in 1983. Over the next few years, the trio got better and better until STANDARDS LIVE (recorded.1985) and STILL LIVE (r.1986) showcased a degree of interpretation and ensemble playing unmatched by any prior piano trio.

Specifically, six tracks are representative ‘bests’ from this period. To Young To Go Steady and The Way You Look Tonight from STANDARDS LIVE have never ever been performed with such emotion and restrained force. Don’t mind the grunting; it’s genius at work. From the STILL LIVE album, The Song Is You is seventeen minutes and thirty-three seconds of non-stop energy with a quintessential example of what Jarrett can do with an extension vamp at the end of a tune. The same thing happens in You And The Night And The Music off the same album. Astonishing. The fifth and sixth ‘best’ tracks demonstrate Jarrett’s love of hymns and sacred music. He ends the ballad Smoke Gets In Your Eyes off TRIBUTE (1989) with a glorious hymn-like cadenza, and begins Body And Soul off THE CURE (1990) with similar jazz-infused reverence. In a similar vein from ten years before, listen to the solo piano album STAIRCASE (1976), especially Hourglass, Part 2—a stunningly beautiful piece, exquisitely recorded.

I mention one more performance that made me fall off my chair. There is a video recording of a concert in Japan entitled SOLO TRIBUTE (recorded 1987). The track There Is No Greater Love combines all of Jarrett’s training and talent to create a work of rhythm, counterpoint, intensity and surprise that is unmatched.

Other Jarrett ‘bests’? There are so many. All The Things You Are from the TRIBUTE album is a monster. The intro alone is worth the price of the whole double CD. For uncomplicated beauty, listen to When I Fall In Love from STILL LIVE. For simple exquisite rhythm, Poinciana from WHISPER NOT (1999).

Also sample http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLCGWh-VZhI

CHARLES LLOYD Forest Flower

 

          If someone held a gun to my head and forced me to choose my favorite jazz recording of all time, it would have to be Forest Flower by Charles Lloyd, the 1966 live recording at the Monterey Jazz Festival.

          The landmark performance took place out of doors, as so many of Charles Lloyd’s performances did in the 1960s at rock festivals around the world. The quartet included Charles Lloyd on tenor saxophone and flutes, Keith Jarrett on piano, Jack DeJohnette on drums, and Cecil McBee on string bass.

          The two-part piece starts with Sunrise, a somewhat lilting melody that weaves back and forth between a Latin-tinged beat and a straight-ahead jazz walking tempo. Charles Lloyd’s tenor work is exceptional throughout the first section, and DeJohnette’s drum solo is nothing short of sublime, but early on, Charles Lloyd hands the reins over to Keith Jarrett who delivers arguably the best jazz piano solo ever performed by anybody, before or after.

          In the second part, Sunset, Lloyd and Jarrett get into some serious, yet fanciful improvising over a gentle, slightly Latin vamp. Their tenor and piano solos each rise to intense highs that recede back to softer touches—Lloyd finishes with wispy double tones and Jarrett ends by plucking (beautifully) the piano strings. The tune gradually fades into the sunset to the approving applause of the audience.

          Sadly, being only fifteen years old at the time, I did not attend the Monterey Jazz Festival. I did see the quartet once in the late sixties at Eagles Auditorium in Seattle and remember being perplexed by the complicated sounds they were making and the guy with curly hair standing over the piano. Charles Lloyd found his way into the hippie rock scene during the sixties and I had the chance to hear him several times at rock festivals. His music was way too sophisticated for rock audiences at the time (myself included), but spoke to us nonetheless.

          I didn’t take jazz seriously until 1969; didn’t even hear Forest Flower until 1970. When I did, I immediately loved Charles Lloyd’s delicate attack, the way he could precede a note with a fairy-like arpeggio way up and back down to the melody note, and the way he played off key, a bit flat, to create an emotional strength more powerful than if he played in tune.

          Charles Lloyd’s tenor playing, to my ear, was most influenced by John Coltrane, especially in the up-tempo works, but Lloyd went beyond Coltrane to his own unique sound. He is an absolute master of slow ballads, again with those floating glissando grace notes, plaintive, upward wisps of notes that fall back to the melody (listen to Song of Her, off the Forest Flower album). He also uses difficult-to-achieve sounds—double notes, false fingering, harmonics—throughout his playing. Charles Lloyd has continued in that inimitable style his entire career to this day.

          Whether or not you like all of Charles Lloyd’s work, the 1966 FOREST FLOWER album is seminal in the history of jazz. One more thing: in the middle of the Sunset section, while Jarrett is building momentum toward a waterfall of sound, you can hear a single engine Cessna fly by overhead. Sort of an inside joke. I wonder if the musicians thought so. And another thing: is there anyone out there who attended the concert who can tell me what someone yelled out from the audience toward the very end of Lloyd’s playing in Forest Flower, receiving a cluster of applause? I would love to know. 

visit jameschanningshaw.com for other writings, blogs and music

 Also: sample http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJQPvADWpsE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcUJe_MZVd8&feature=related