In an era when box sets are so plentiful and are basically de rigueur for any major, and some not so major labels, it's virtually a wonder that a
Weather Report box set didn't appear until the 21st century. Things take as long as they must, evidently, and
Legacy has done an outstanding job with this set. Consisting of three CDs and a DVD of a phenomenal live concert from 1978 (with
Jaco Pastorius and
Peter Erskine on the
Heavy Weather tour), this document considers every aspect of the band's career carefully and thoughtfully. It actually commences on disc one with some of
Wayne Shorter's and
Joe Zawinul's pre-
Weather Report ensembles, beginning with their joint membership in
Miles Davis' band during the
Bitches Brew era with
"In a Silent Way." Zawinul composed it; he and
Shorter both played on it. This short version of the tune was recorded by
Davis, but according to
Hal Miller's fantastic liner notes (there should be a Grammy nomination for these),
Zawinul never gave
Miles the intro for the tune, just the one-chord vamp; his own version is very different. Also here is
Shorter's
"Super Nova," from his
Blue Note record of the same name, along with an excerpt of
Zawinul's
"Experience in E" with the
Cannonball Adderley band (from
Adderley's
Domination). The reason? Both men embraced concepts and tropes that became part of the
Weather Report's method of working.
The actual
Weather Report tunes begin with
"Milky Way," from their debut album, and continue with four more from that album, including the full version of
"Eurydice." Weather Report was a free and progressive band which took its composer's frameworks and built floating, drifting, melding, sparkings of ideas into them; members at this point also included bassist
Miroslav Vitous, percussionist
Airto Moreira, and drummer
Alphonse Mouzon. The band's sound got bigger and stranger on the classic
I Sing the Body Electric disc from 1971.
Moreira was in transition and
Eric Gravatt entered the drum chair as
Dom Um Romao became the band's percussionist. There is one of two unreleased cuts from these years: a different version of
Zawinul's
"Directions" with sparks aplenty. The real emergence of a new
Weather Report sound began in 1973 with the underrated and classic
Sweetnighter. While only
"125th Street Congress" is included to round out the first disc, it is a mighty one, clocking in at over 12 minutes and showcasing for the first time the kind of deep funky groove the band was capable of; the song included not only
Vitous, but also electric bassist
Andrew White, who played English horn on
"Unknown Soldier" on their previous album. This is the point where the bass-heavy groove began to dominate the band's sound, and rhythmic groove became the centerpiece not only for
improvisation, but composition as well.
Disc two kicks off with an unreleased live version of
"Nubian Sundance" from 1974, with electric bassist (
Vitous had left by this point in time for a solo career)
Alphonso Johnson who'd also played on
Tale Spinnin'.
Pastorius made his first appearance with the band on
"Black Market" and thereafter
Weather Report became a different unit. The music became more progressive, funky, and complex, where the groove was decorated with all kinds of syncopated keyboard and saxophone charts, and
Pastorius became the centerpiece of the band's sound, and its third composer. (His loss is clearly felt on
Procession and
Domino Theory, with
Victor Bailey replacing him.) This sound becomes paradoxically more and more idiosyncratic and complicated. All the predictable selections are here, from
"Birdland," "Three Views of a Secret," "Palladium," "Pursuit of the Woman in the Feathered Red Hat," "Dream Clock," and
"Dara Factor Two" from the subsequent studio albums, by which time the trio of
Zawinul,
Pastorius, and
Shorter was aided and abetted alternately by drummers
Peter Erskine and
Omar Hakim, and percussionists
Bobby Thomas, Jr.,
Mino Cinelu, and
Jose Rossy, among others, and there are some live cuts from the
8:30 album, including the stunning
"The Orphan," where
Shorter and
Zawinul played with the
West Los Angeles Christian Academy Children's Choir. There is also a
DJ Logic remix of
"125th Street Congress," perhaps to illustrate how the band's sound has remained current after all this time. The DVD from the
Heavy Weather tour with
Pastorius and
Erskine is simply outstanding, whether watched or listened to, it is a document that fans and collectors live for; there have been some dodgy boots of the music out there, but nothing matches this sound quality. All assembled, this is a fitting box set that represents a seminal part of
jazz and
pop/rock history. The only gripes are that some more of the unedited material from
Live in Tokyo (the stuff that didn't make it to the flip of
I Sing the Body Electric) isn't here, since the album was never issued in the United States, and there isn't more unreleased material. But in sum, this is perhaps really a teaser to induce listeners to dig into the band's catalog. It serves not only as a fitting introduction to
Weather Report, but also as a definitive will and testament to a band that was both a critical and popular success for over a decade. ~ Thom Jurek
