We are in 1971, Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul leave the Maestro Miles Davis, with whom they had collaborated, to embark on a common project: the Weather Report is born, one of the most important groups in the history of music.
The debut album is very interesting; from here you can already outline that typical sound that will become a trademark of this group and will be refined during their golden era, with the arrival of the great bassist Jaco Pastorius. The Weather Report was characterized by a sublime alternation between pieces of strong energy and more subdued rhythms, without losing that class and originality imprint that would remain throughout their career. This fact is confirmed by the opening track "Milky Way", a splendid and very calm piece, and "Seventh Arrow", a very powerful song of fine craftsmanship; inside the tracks, you can find very appreciable rhythm changes, evidence of a strong instinct for improvisation. Such a result is the outcome of a special synchronicity between Shorter, an excellent saxophonist, and Zawinul, an extremely original pianist. Alongside this magical couple, indissoluble over the years, many musicians will join: in this case, it will be Miroslav Vitous enriching the music of the two with a fine bass touch. The album closes with a very beautiful crescendo: the last track, "Eurydice", constitutes one of the highlights of the entire album.
The music of Weather Report has been heard all over the world and has laid an important foundation for many musical projects (an example from our country is Napoli Centrale by James Senese). To understand this, it is necessary to start from the origins of a fascinating group capable of leaving musical gems of inestimable value. A final note is deserved by the cover, definitely interesting and surrounded by an aura of mystery.
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By vellutogrigio
Weather Report acted with the spirit of a rock band, making their music dynamic and always propositional, avoiding the sterile pitfalls of a certain, self-indulgent virtuosity typical of certain jazz.
With this album, the Weather Report unquestionably marked bad weather, and tending towards deterioration, presenting instrumental music devoid of the past’s flashes.