Weather Report - Japan 1978

This is Weather Report on the 28th June 1978 at the Shinjuku Kouseinenkin Hall, Tokyo, Japan. Weather Report was an influential American jazz band of the 1970s and early 1980s. The band was co-led by the Austrian-born keyboard player Josef "Joe" Zawinul and the American saxophonist Wayne Shorter (and, initially, by Czech bass player Miroslav Vitouš). Other prominent members at various points in the band’s lifespan included Jaco Pastorius, Peter Erskine, Alphonso Johnson, Airto Moreira and Chester Thompson.

Alongside Chick Corea's Return to Forever, Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters, The Mahavishnu Orchestra, and the early 1970s Miles Davis electric bands, Weather Report is considered to be one of the pre-eminent jazz fusion bands, although the band members themselves disdained the term. As a continuous working unit, Weather Report outlasted all of its contemporaries despite frequent changes of personnel, with a career lasting sixteen years between 1970 and 1986.

The recruitment of Jaco Pastorius helped to push Weather Report to the height of its popularity. Already a rising star in his own right, he could play lightning-fast groove lines influenced by rhythm’n’blues or funk, as well as demonstrating an extraordinary solo control of tone and string harmonics, often sounding more like a horn player.

By 1978 the band was once again without either a full-time drummer and percussionist, with Alex Acuña having returned to Las Vegas for a career as a studio musician and Manolo Badrena having been fired for "non-musical reasons." Shorter had been focussing most of his attention and compositional ideas into his solo work; while Zawinul was sketching out ideas for a solo album of his own which involved moving away from a raw group sound in favour of constructing a far more orchestrated and experimental studio-based recording with multiple overdubs. However, Weather Report’s contract and work schedule required another album, so Zawinul’s solo work was absorbed into what became Weather Report’s eighth album, Mr. Gone.

The studio sessions made use of a variety of drummers – Pastorius played the kit on two tracks and further contributions came from Tony Williams, Steve Gadd, and Peter Erskine (the latter an ex-Stan Kenton/Maynard Ferguson drummer recruited to the project by Pastorius). Erskine would become a full member of the band for the next tour and would remain with Weather Report until 1982. 

Source: FM Broadcast

Sound Quality: Very good stereo mp3@320kbps 

Genre: Jazz Fusion, Jazz.

Set: Majority of Set (8 of 11 songs performed).

Set List:

101. Elegant People
102. Scarlet Woman
103. Teen Town
104. A Remark You Made
105. Black Market
201. Gibraltar
202. Ponta De Areia - Sophisticated Lady
203. Birdland 

Website: Discography site HERE. Tour history site HERE.

Comments:

The three tracks not featured on the FM broadcast were (6th number) Portrait of Tracy (8th number) Brother Can You Spare A Dime (11th number) Drum Intro - Badia. Line up was Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, Jaco Pastorius, and Peter Erskine.

Download links (two) in comments below.