Weather Report - Black Market (1976 Japanese CBS/Sony Stereo LP)

Vinyl: VG+
Sleeve: VG+
Obi: None

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Weather Report - Black Market | Vinyl LP - 1976 Japanese CBS/Sony (25AP 57, CBS/Sony Inc.)

Weather Report had released five albums before this one. Their lineup shifted constantly around the fixed core of Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter. Black Market was the last album with Alphonso Johnson on bass before Pastorius became the permanent member - here the two bassists split the record between them, Johnson on five tracks and Pastorius on two.

Zawinul had played with Cannonball Adderley from 1961 to 1971, contributing "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" to Adderley's biggest commercial success. When Adderley died in August 1973, Zawinul responded with "Cannon Ball" - a four-and-a-half-minute piece that sounds like a celebration rather than a solemn dirge, Shorter's soprano moving over Narada Michael Walden's drums and Pastorius's bass in a way that recalls what Adderley's own music had felt like at its most open. It was the first piece Pastorius recorded with the band.

"Gibraltar" introduces the lyricon, an early wind synthesizer manufactured by Computone. Shorter plays it here with a tone somewhere between saxophone and theremin, layered over Zawinul's Arp 2600 and Oberheim synthesizers. Chester Thompson on drums and Alex Acuña on congas play against each other throughout most of Side A. Side B gives Shorter two originals, "Elegant People" and "Three Clowns", before handing the writing credits to the rhythm section. "Barbary Coast" is Pastorius's composition, funky and playful, the bass in front. "Herandnu" closes the album with Alphonso Johnson's contribution, the more harmonically ambitious of the two bass-player originals.

This is the 1976 Japanese CBS/Sony pressing (25AP 57), manufactured by CBS/Sony Inc.