Weather Report: Heavy Weather

First off, I have always considered the name “Weather Report” to be an excellent choice for a jazz-fusion group. That said, the name itself implies everything from a serene sunday afternoon with blue skies to a tempestuous thunderstorm complete with lightning and pounding rain. And to me the actual jazz group does not fail to live up to its name.

Over the years, Weather Report has gone through a multitude of personnel changes that have also made this group live up to its name in that respect as well. But to me, the lineup of 1977 with Joe Zawinul (keyboards), Wayne Shorter (saxophones), Manolo Badrena (percussion), Alex Acuna (drums) and the amazing fretless bassist/composer/arranger Jaco Pastorius was THE most definitive Weather Report lineup ever assembled.

For me (personally as a musician), this recording is definitely one of the top 10 to have inspired me to continue to play music, period. It’s amazing tour de force performances, creative compositions and tight arrangements make this a must-have for any jazz enthusiast’s essential recordings collection.

Birdland is the obvious “hit” on the album, but songs like A Remark You Made with Shorter’s melancholy saxophone and Zawinul’s keyboard flourishes demonstrate the depth and emotional expressiveness this jazz group can muster up.

Teen Town (one will find) is the ultimate Pastorius hit-single in the jazz realm, with Pastorius playing drums himself, using a tight crackling piccolo snare to solidify his underlying funky bass lines.

But to me the real hilight comes with Rhumba Mama (an amazing live recording of Badrena and Acuna in a show-stopping percussive assault of the senses) immediately followed by the electronic fanfare heralding Palladium, a jazz-fusion-carribean-influenced performance grounded by an absolutely killer bass line by Pastorius (who incidentally also plays steel drums toward the end.

Surely, this enfusion of many styles of music from jazz to latin to classical and funk is what Heavy Weather is all about. It is just sad that Jaco Pastorius, bursting into the jazz limelight with this single recording, had met an untimely death. I’m sure the jazz world still misses him and what could’ve been accomplished if he had been alive today.

In summary, his recording will inspire at many levels, from the simplicity and sophistication of its grooves to the depth and soul of its musicians’ various instrumental solos, for the jazz-rock-fusion enthusiast, this is a must-have and certifiable classic, which will be cherished for many years to come as one of the defining recordings of its time.