Weather Report
8:30

Neither jazz, nor rock, nor jazz-rock, fusion, cross-over, or other useless and banal labels, these are the Weather Report, theirs is the music of the Weather Report.

The first time I listened to this album, I was literally left with my mouth open: "Were they really playing like this live?" And yes, because I have never heard anything like it from anyone else.
The energy poured into this album is total, the impressive technique of the musicians who play on it is completely directed towards the result, the compositions are unique in their genre, the interplay is fantastic.

After the sales success of "Heavy Weather," Zawinul and company afford the luxury of organizing and self-producing a world tour with a deployment of means worthy of a top-grossing rock band (megascreen, lasers, etc.), filling arenas with music that is never banal or too indulgent with the audience.
We are in '79, long before the MIDI era and computers on stage, but Zawinul manages to bring out sounds from his rather primitive synths of unique beauty, still today I believe a point of reference for any self-respecting keyboardist. The tracks on the album are almost all his, revealing his jazz origins, his passion for ethnic music (the real kind), for 20th-century European composers, and for rock, all held together by a unique sensitivity and a superb group.

The other musicians include the undisputed Jaco Pastorius, the greatest bassist who ever lived, in my opinion here at the peak of his form (later illness and the abuse of alcohol and drugs would lead him to an absurd death). Just listen to what is perhaps his most famous piece on the album, Teen Town, to understand who we are talking about: apart from the theme entirely entrusted to the bass (a revolution), the riff that Jaco plays in Wayne Shorter's solo section is simply incredible. A genius.
On drums, there's the great Peter Erskine, perfectly complementary to Pastorius, versatile, precise, and powerful; to get an idea, just listen to Badia/Boogie Woogie Waltz considering he didn't use a double pedal for the bass drum.
And then Wayne Shorter, already a jazz legend at the time, always lyrical, at ease even in the infernal grooves produced by the rhythm section, with his powerful and clean sound, his poetic phrasing always; listen to believe the ballad A Remark You Made: the sound of the tenor saxophone, while his intonation on the soprano drives anyone who approaches this instrument crazy, not to mention the language he has developed on this iron tube, which is practically unrivaled.

In short, a beautiful, dense, energetic, pure album.