WEATHER REPORT — Heavy Weather (review)

WEATHER REPORT — Heavy Weather album cover Album · 1977 · Fusion Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
M.Neumann
My late exposure to the music of Weather Report has made me realize (belatedly) the range of influence they enjoyed at the height of their popularity in the mid 1970s. How many other bands of the era, from all over the world (Passport in Germany; Secret Oyster in Copenhagen; even the Italian symphonic proggers of PFM in their "Jet Lag" phase) were tracing from the same template created by Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter?

But popularity doesn't come without a price, and there's more than a hint of complacency behind this 1977 album, the band's most commercially successful effort. Whatever sharp edges their music may have once had were carefully smoothed away here, and the result is an undeniably pleasant but hardly challenging model of mainstream Jazz-Rock, unlikely to offend even the knee-jerk prejudices of the resolutely anti-fusion music press.

The ubiquitous hit song "Birdland" sets an attractive pace, opening the album with a relentlessly catchy rhythm and more hooks than a bait shop. But elsewhere the LP hardly lives up to its assertive title and apocalyptic cover art. The percussion duo of Alejandro Acuña and Manolo Badrem are allowed a few energetic minutes of uninhibited mayhem on "Rumba Mama" (recorded live at the 1976 Montreux Jazz Festival), but all the flailing timbales and manic shouting sound misplaced alongside the more circumspect studio jamming elsewhere on the album.

The musicianship is, I hardly need add, never less than outstanding throughout: any group formed around a nucleus of Zawinul, Shorter, and the virtuoso skills of bass guitar legend Jaco Pastorius is going to be simply beyond criticism. But here they pulled their musical punches somewhat, sacrificing just enough of their collective individuality to attract a wider spectrum of listeners.

In the overall timeline of the band it remains an important album, but despite all the rewards and acclaim hardly their best effort.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Jazz Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

JMA TOP 5 Jazz ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
A Love Supreme Post Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
Kind of Blue Cool Jazz
MILES DAVIS
Buy this album from our partners
The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady Progressive Big Band
CHARLES MINGUS
Buy this album from our partners
Blue Train Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
My Favorite Things Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners

New Jazz Artists

New Jazz Releases

Remy Le Boeuf’s Assembly Of Shadows : Heartland Radio Pop/Art Song/Folk
REMY LE BOEUF
Buy this album from MMA partners
Hummingbird and Four Flowers : Turntable and Harmonium Solo Live Jazz Related Improv/Composition
OTOMO YOSHIHIDE
Buy this album from MMA partners
Water Music Avant-Garde Jazz
IVO PERELMAN
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Lost Chord Jazz Related Improv/Composition
HENRY KAISER
Buy this album from MMA partners
Hackensack West Post-Fusion Contemporary
ANTHONY WILSON
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Jazz Online Videos

"Miles Between" // by Shawn Schlogel & Nancy Erickson Lamont
NANCY ERICKSON LAMONT
js· 13 hours ago
Mature Hybird Talking
FRANK GRATKOWSKI
js· 2 days ago
Perspective (Peace & Love)
ISAIAH COLLIER
js· 2 days ago
T-SQUARE 45th Anniversary Celebration Concert & Tour 2023 @Zepp Nagoya ?CLIMAX?
T-SQUARE
js· 3 days ago
Cravo E Canela (Cloves & Cinnamon)
LEE RITENOUR
js· 3 days ago
More videos

New JMA Jazz Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Jazz News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed