Weather Report - Weather Report

Few bands can make such a huge impact in the world of music that they become almost instantaneously connected with a particular genre. One of the mightiest titans to rise from the ashes of Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew album were the jazz rock/ experimental jazz band Weather Report. Weather Report boasted of having two of Davis’s finest – Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter, with each proudly holding the title of bandleader.

The band’s self-titled debut album was out in 1971, and is considered one of the prime examples of the ensuing electric jazz era. Amongst the early albums of the specific genre, the album is identifiable with it’s comparatively lower degree of in your face playing than what was brought to the plate by the virtuosic musicians of the genre in later years, may be more so due to the leadership of the band’s key figure who believed in a less is more approach to music focusing on playing the down right nasty than to the down right crazy.

Usually with this form of music, it is not too common to find tracks that become part of one’s daily remembrance, but the album does feature some numbers which easily get engraved in the mind’s musical library. Wayne Shorter’s economy of playing has it’s own charm, and it is almost as if he doesn’t need as many notes to put his story across. On Orange Lady, pianist Zawinul pushes the sax man through differentiating environments, but all through he maintains his static approach, which actually fits in better than one would expect.

The band has not tied themselves with the notion that they something has to happen all the time. Like on Milky Way, a track, which would definitely be familiar to Playstation freaks, Shorter and Zawinul have used a minimalist amount of work, lesser than what could be found on an average jazz album, but the track is even more powerful than many tracks involving a lot more work. It goes to show the mark of true genius. Even on Morning Lake, the band forces the listener in, and tries to make them come to the song rather than the other way around. Which is something the band would become renowned for.

Not to say that the album doesn’t bring with it sense of busyness. Umbrellas and Seventh Arrow have a lot happening in them, in the case of the latter the minor additions made by Zawinul from time and again is comparable to a master artist stroking away with different shades over a white lightly coloured canvas.

Whether or not someone is going to respond well to the album, it is not right to harpoon it down to the question of taste. Though the album will appeal to those who have acquired a taste for this sort of music without fail, and for those who are looking out for a little experimentation when it comes to their music, and want something out of the box. For those who wouldn’t define this music as tasteful, all that can be said is “may be in a couple of years more”. But leaving aside the wise cracks, the album is must hear for any one who prides himself as a lover of borderless music and someone who needs to venture past the epidermis of music.