The origins and sound of Weather Report in 1971 are credited to the bonding of jazz veterans Joe Zawinul on keyboards (1932-2007) and saxophonist Wayne Shorter (born in 1933). They were acquaintances for a decade before working together with Miles Davis on his transitional sessions of 1969 that led to In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew. It was not long after that before Shorter and Zawinul decided to form their own group, partnering with Czech bassist Miroslav Vitous (born in 1947), who had been playing and recording with the likes of Shorter, Herbie Mann, Chick Corea and Stan Getz. As journalist and jazz/fusion scholar Bill Milkowski’s liner notes to this box set point out, “They began forging a new direction in instrumental music with a signature sound that incorporated elements of rock, funk, folkloric melodies and collective group improvisation along with touches of electronic abstraction and pan-global exotica.”
Weather Report’s self-titled debut album of 1971 brought in the first of many sidemen (drummer Alphonse Mouzon and percussionist Airto Moreira) that the group would employ. Recorded in three days, it was (said Zawinul) “a feeling-out period” for the band, as they had not previously played together as a group. It received a 5-star review from Dan Morgenstern in Down Beat, and went on to win Jazz Album of the Year in the annual Readers Poll; also, Japan’s prestigious Grand Prix Award for winning Swing Journal magazine’s Readers and Critics Polls.
Live in Tokyo, recorded in January 1972 with a new touring drummer (Eric Gravatt) and percussionist (Dom Um Romao), was released that year in Japan on LP, and later on CD, but has never been issued in the U.S. before. The tracks on Tokyo reprised several of the debut’s pieces, mostly in lengthy, highly-charged medleys, with cuts ranging from 11 to 26 minutes.
Weather Report’s official second LP, 1972’s I Sing the Body Electric, juxtaposed highly-edited versions of three Tokyo tracks with four new studio pieces. It was followed in 1973 by Sweetnighter (highlighted by double drummers and percussionists), which found Weather Report moving towards a more structured approach to offset its nightly collective improvisations. Also (for the first time), an outside funk bassist replaced Vitous on certain tracks that Zawinul felt needed more groove, the precursor to Vitous leaving the band. The LP earned Weather Report the Jazz Group of the Year honor in Down Beat’s Readers Poll of 1973.
1974’s Mysterious Traveller brought young Philadelphia bassist Alphonso Johnson into the lineup, as Zawinul expanded his keyboard textures with the ARP 2600 synthesizer supplanting his Fender Rhodes electric piano. The record was named Jazz Album of the Year in the annual Down Beat poll. A new drummer, Ndugu Leon Chancler was recruited from Santana to record 1975’s Tale Spinnin’, as Weather Report moved even deeper into the Latin/funk song-driven grooves that would provide familiar sounds for fans at their concerts. The annual Down Beat poll named the LP Jazz Album of the Year, with Weather Report named Jazz Group of the Year.
Over the course of the six albums included in this box set, Zawinul and Shorter introduced many of their most memorable and celebrated compositions including “Orange Lady,” “Dr. Honoris Causa,” “The Unknown Soldier,” “Boogie Woogie Waltz,” “Nubian Sundance,” and “Man In The Green Shirt” by Zawinul; and “Tears,” “The Moors,” “Manolete,” Mysterious Traveler,” and “Lusitanos” by Shorter.
1976 saw the debut of 25-year old South Florida bass prodigy Jaco Pastorius on the Black Market sessions. Jaco’s entry on that album marked the start of the next phase of Weather Report, as presented in the 6-CD box set, Weather Report – The Columbia Albums 1976-1982 Featuring Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter And Jaco Pastorius. That previous box set entry in this Complete Album Collections series traces the group’s evolution from Black Market through 1982’s self-titled Weather Report, “the Jaco years.”
Each multi-disc box set contains the artist’s entire album output during their original label tenure (Columbia, Epic, RCA, Arista, and so on), or focuses on some aspect of their output. Each album is packaged in a replica mini-LP sleeve reproducing that LP’s original front and back cover artwork.
The bonus tracks on Weather Report – The Columbia Albums 1971-1975 come from two sources: material from Live & Unreleased, the double-CD release of 2002; and material that was previously unreleased at the time it was included on Forecast: Tomorrow, the four-disc (three CDs plus DVD) box set retrospective released in 2006. In every case, the bonus material is contemporaneous with the original album on which is has now been appended.
The box sets in the Complete Album Collections series have been produced by longtime Grammy Award-winning and Grammy Award-nominated Legacy producers Richard Seidel, Michael Cuscuna, Michael Brooks, Didier Deutsch and Bob Belden. All packaging has been supervised by Grammy Award-winning former Legacy Vice President of Jazz Marketing Seth Rothstein, and art directed by award-winning designer Edward ODowd, who has worked on more than 150 CD packages in various genres.
Virtually all of the CDs in these box sets have been remastered by Sony Senior Mastering Engineer Mark Wilder. He has received seven Grammy Award nominations and 3 Grammy Awards® in his nearly 25 years at Sony. All of the jazz CDs in the Complete Album Collections are produced from the most up to date and best-sounding masters available.
Content:
1. Weather Report (1971) – plus one bonus track
2. I Sing the Body Electric (1972) – plus one bonus track
3. Live in Tokyo (1972, double-CD) – first ever U.S. release
4. Sweetnighter (1973) – plus one bonus track
5. Mysterious Traveller (1974) – plus two bonus tracks
6. Tale Spinnin’ (1975) – plus two bonus tracks
Other Weather Report box sets available:
Unfortunately, it appears that from the point when Weather Report started recording at independent studios(on their third album “Sweetnighter”) that Columbia Records received only the finished mixes; and so they didn’t receive the studio outtakes. Only Wayne Shorter or the group’s managers know what happened to the multi tracks & outtakes.
For people who have purchased all of the group’s previous Columbia & Sony CD’s, this set has nothing to offer.