I’ve relaxed a bit much recently, enough to take a long look at what I’ve gone and created with this blog and enough to stutter-step my way into whatever is next on it. In the midst of the “stutter”, while considering the redesigns to come and some of the changes in here, I think I’ll just relax and hand over the earphones for a bit. Let’s check out the Weather Report, shall we?

Weather Report are responsible for a few things. Among other things, the core group of Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul and – at least at first – Miroslav Vitous – were melodic and tonal geniuses. Like many pure jazz artists, they could set a mood, tweak it and leave you in whatever shape they wanted to – they were that good at their instruments and with their amazing ears. Joe Zawinul I have featured in here before (right here, check out his music 40 years later) and Wayne Shorter is simply my all-time favorite saxophonist. But both were totally brilliant. At the time this piece was performed – in Japan, in 1970 – they had already made large murmurs within jazz which was then debating the Miles Davis move into electronics and – in many cases – lamenting all of it – this more “rock and roll” (read simplistic) movement away from what had gotten stodgy, in my opinion. Purists, harumph! Well, these guys sure woke folks up, some kicking and screaming, others, like me, relishing an entirely new direction in music itself. Up-tempo, melodic (almost!), and frighteningly and very directly hitting the soul, right where it gets tickled the hardest. These guys were definitely in the genius category, musically,  and they stood the world on its head for a while. Later, they discovered and exposed  the very best musicians in the world, who clamored to play with this “best in the business” bunch. But this is their first work, from their very first album.

Weather Report