b o b

After getting heavily into Miles Davis' fusion albums from the late 60s and early 70s, I chanced to find Weather Report's first album in a pile of used CDs that someone was selling at ProgDay. So I gave it a shot. It struck me as interesting but not overly exciting, and the band soon fell off my radar. It probably would have stayed that way, but fortunately a coworker decided to upgrade his old vinyl Weather Report collection to CD, so I got to borrow them and spent a couple weeks listening to the band's entire catalog in chronological order. The early stuff kept sounding better and better to me, and now I'm a big fan of those first few albums. The guy I borrowed them from is a bass player, and he kept telling me that the really good stuff didn't happen until Jaco Pastorius joined the band. Well, the bass playing certainly got flashier at that point. Unfortunately, the band's overall sound started getting less experimental and more commercial. By the time they got to Heavy Weather, the music was starting to sound pretty generic. "Birdland" is instantly likeable, upbeat and catchy, and has a melody that sticks in your head. But it's also very "plastic" sounding to me, and those cheesy handclaps don't help at all. Then there are tracks like "A Remark You Made" and "Harlequin", which are very pretty but sound like the kind of jazz that Kenny G fans would probably dig (I've probably lost all credibility saying that...IMHO and all that). "Teen Town" is another upbeat tune, written by Pastorius and therefore featuring all sorts of impressive bass playing. The first half of the album has the more famous songs, but I actually prefer the back half. It kicks off with the energetic percussion-fest "Rumba Mama" and then goes into the cool jammy track "Palladium", which has more slick, peppy bass and a nice sax melody from Shorter. Zawinul's "The Juggler" is laid-back without slipping into elevator music and features some interesting keyboard textures. The final track is another good bass showcase for Jaco. Overall I like the album, but the overly slick, commercialized sound puts me off a little. My recommendation to prog fans would be to start with earlier albums and work your way up (or down) to this one. review by Bob Eichler — 7-31-03 —

b r a n d o n

As my first tentative foray into the array of "classic" jazz fusion, I have mixed feelings about Heavy Weather. The overall sound here is suspiciously close to "smooth jazz" that one might hear on an easy listening station, though that description doesn't do justice to the better compositions, and the whole record is spiced up by great performances all around. On the one hand, some of the music is nicely paced and really swings along with the truly great rhythm section based on Jaco Pastorius' fantastic fretless bass playing. Pastorius' own composition "Havona" is a most obvious standout, and his other composition credit on the album, "Teen Town", has a pretty great groove to it as well. The enormous hit single "Birdland" is also, actually, a very good piece with an infectiously jaunty feel. On the other hand, pieces like "A Remark You Made" and "Harlequin" nullify the interesting rhythm section and proceed languidly along with Shorter's clean sax playing rising above the rest of the instruments. Sounds fine in principle, but it's executed in an unfortunately boring and, well, overly "smooth" way. Apparently the earlier albums by this band are much more experimental and therefore better appreciated by prog fans - taking that at face value, I'd recommend starting with this band's earlier works, not this one. review by Brandon Wu — 1-13-00 —