Weather Report - Weather Report (1971 Japanese CBS/Sony Original LP)

Vinyl: VG+
Sleeve: VG+
Obi: None

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Weather Report - Weather Report | Vinyl LP - 1971 Japanese CBS/Sony Original (SOPC 57132, SX68Sound)

Zawinul and Shorter left Miles Davis's band within months of each other in 1970. They had been the primary composers of Davis's electric period and they took its central idea with them: that improvisation and composition could be the same thing, that the distinction between soloist and accompanist was artificial, and that texture was as important as melody.

They recruited Miroslav Vitous on bass. Vitous was Czech, had studied at Berklee and had been part of the same New York scene, playing with Herbie Mann, Chick Corea and others. Alphonze Mouzon, twenty-two years old, played drums. Airto Moreira, who had also just finished recording with Miles, played percussion alongside Barbara Burton.

The sessions ran from February 16 to March 17, 1971 at Columbia Studios. Nothing on the record sounds like conventional jazz-rock fusion. "Milky Way" opens with Shorter's soprano saxophone overtones drifting across Zawinul's sustained piano resonance for two and a half minutes. "Orange Lady," at eight minutes and forty seconds the longest track, uses a structure Zawinul had developed during the Bitches Brew dates and Miles had passed on. "Waterfall" builds slowly from Zawinul's electric piano into the album's fullest collective statement. "Tears" has Mouzon singing wordlessly over Shorter's melody. "Eurydice" closes the record at a faster pace than anything that precedes it, the bass and drums pushing harder than anywhere else on the album.

This is the 1971 Japanese CBS/Sony original pressing (SOPC 57132), SX68Sound series.