If you dug Jazz, listened to Rock, and listened to music experimentally in the ’70s, chances are great that you dabbled in the area of Fusion Jazz. That’s where Rock and Jazz combined to provide a funky hybrid of new-styled music. And chances are greater that you listened to, if not outright revered, Weather Report.
Weather Report was a group of notable musicians known in their original standalone careers. Those were Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, Jaco Pastorius, Airto Moreira, Peter Erskine, Vic Bailey, Alex Acuña, Chester Thompson, and Alphonso Johnson. Not all of these players played at the same time. At the band’s peak with their monumental Heavy Weather (1977), they boasted band leaders, Zawinul and Shorer, along with Jaco, Acuña, and Manola Badrena.
The band pushed more than ten studio albums out the door as well as a few live sets during the course of a nice extended career.
On November 20, Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings will release a 4CD Box of previously unreleased live music, a form that this band thrived with. The Box, The Legendary Live Tapes 1978-1981 concentrates on the years that featured Zawinul (always Zawinul), Shorter, Jaco, Erskine, and Bobby Thomas, Jr. The 4CDs will offer up 28 power house live performance cuts over a span of time.
The box is produced and curated by Peter Erskine and Joe Zawinul’s son, Tony Zawinul.
The Legendary Live Tapes 1978-1981 – Weather Report
Track-List:
CD1:
01. 8:30
02. Sightseeing
03. Brown Street
04. The Orphan
05. Forlorn
06. Three Views of a Secret
07. Badia/Boogie Woogie Waltz
08. Wayne Solo
09. Jaco Solo (Osaka 1980)
CD2:
01. Joe and Wayne Duet (Tokyo 1978)
02. Birdland
03. Peter’s Solo ( Drum Solo )
04. A Remark You Made
05. Continuum/River People
06. Gibraltar
CD3:
01. Fast City
02. Madagascar
03. Night Passage
04. Dream Clock
05. Rockin’ In Rhythm
06. Port of Entry
CD4:
01. Elegant People
02. Scarlet Woman
03. Black Market
04. Jaco Solo (Osaka 1978)
05. Teen Town
06. Peter’s Drum Solo
07. Directions