Weather Report
Encyclopedia
Weather Report was an American jazz-rock band of the 1970s and early 1980s. The band was co-led by the Austrian-born keyboard player Joe Zawinul
Joe Zawinul
Josef Erich Zawinul was an Austrian-American jazz keyboardist and composer.First coming to prominence with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, Zawinul went on to play with trumpeter Miles Davis, and to become one of the creators of jazz fusion, an innovative musical genre that combined jazz with...

 and the American saxophonist Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.He is generally acknowledged to be jazz's greatest living composer, and many of his compositions have become standards...

 (and, initially, by Czech bass player Miroslav Vitouš
Miroslav Vitouš
Miroslav Ladislav Vitouš , is a Czech jazz bassist.-Biography:Born in Prague, he began the violin at age six, and started playing the piano at age ten, and bass at fourteen. As a young man in Europe, Vitouš was a competitive swimmer. One of his early music groups was the Junior Trio with his...

). Other prominent members at various points in the band’s lifespan included Jaco Pastorius
Jaco Pastorius
John Francis Anthony Pastorius III , known as Jaco Pastorius, was an American jazz musician and composer widely acknowledged as a virtuoso electric bass player....

, Peter Erskine
Peter Erskine
Peter Erskine is an American jazz drummer and composer. He has enjoyed a long and successful career as a session drummer, recording and touring with many famous jazz and rock artists, including Steely Dan and Weather Report...

, Alphonso Johnson
Alphonso Johnson
Alphonso Johnson is an American jazz bassist who has been influential since the early 1970s.-Biography:Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Johnson started off as an upright bass player, but switched to the electric bass in his late teens. Beginning his career in the early 1970s, Johnson showed...

, Victor Bailey, Airto Moreira
Airto Moreira
Airto Moreira is a Brazilian jazz drummer and percussionist. Airto is married to jazz singer Flora Purim, and their daughter Diana Moreira is also a singer. He currently resides in Los Angeles.-Biography:...

 and Chester Thompson
Chester Thompson
Chester Cortez Thompson is an American drummer and session musician.-Biography:Thompson made his name as a session drummer, going on to play in Frank Zappa's touring band and with Weather Report...

.

Alongside Chick Corea
Chick Corea
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, and composer.Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever...

's Return to Forever
Return to Forever
Return to Forever is a jazz fusion group founded and led by keyboardist Chick Corea. Through its existence, the band has cycled through a number of different members, with the only consistent band mate of Corea's being bassist Stanley Clarke...

, Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...

’s Headhunters
The Headhunters
The Headhunters are an American jazz-funk fusion band, best known for their albums they recorded as a backing band of jazz keyboard player Herbie Hancock during the 1970s. Hancock's debut album with the group, Head Hunters, is one of the best-selling jazz/fusion records of all time.-History:Herbie...

, The Mahavishnu Orchestra
The Mahavishnu Orchestra
The Mahavishnu Orchestra was a jazz fusion group, led by John McLaughlin, that debuted in 1971, dissolved in 1976 and reunited from 1984 to 1987.-First Mahavishnu Orchestra:...

, the Pat Metheny Group
Pat Metheny
Patrick Bruce "Pat" Metheny is an American jazz guitarist and composer.One of the most successful and critically acclaimed jazz musicians to come to prominence in the 1970s and '80s, he is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works and other side projects...

, Spyro Gyra
Spyro Gyra
Spyro Gyra is an American jazz fusion band that was originally formed in the mid-1970s in Buffalo, New York, USA. With over 25 albums released and 10 million copies sold, they are among the most prolific as well as commercially successful groups of the genre...

 and the early 1970s Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

 electric bands, Weather Report is considered to be one of the pre-eminent jazz fusion
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...

 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.

Musical style

Over a sixteen-year career Weather Report’s music explored various areas, centred on jazz (including both the "free
Free jazz
Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...

" and "Latin
Latin jazz
Latin jazz is the general term given to jazz with Latin American rhythms.The three main categories of Latin Jazz are Brazilian, Cuban and Puerto Rican:# Brazilian Latin Jazz includes bossa nova...

" varieties) but also including various elements of art music
Art music
Art music is an umbrella term used to refer to musical traditions implying advanced structural and theoretical considerations and a written musical tradition...

, ethnic music, R&B, funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

 and rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

. While their work was often categorised as "jazz fusion", the band members themselves generally rejected the term.

From the start, Weather Report took the unusual and innovative approach of abandoning the traditional "soloist/accompaniment" demarcation of straight-ahead jazz and instead featuring opportunities for continuous improvisation
Improvisation
Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...

 by every member of the band. This position remained consistent throughout the life of the band. From the mid-1970s individual solos became more prominent, but were never allowed to overwhelm the music’s collective approach. Initially, the band's music featured a free, extended improvisational method (similar to Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

's Bitches Brew
Bitches Brew
Bitches Brew is a studio double album by jazz musician Miles Davis, released in April 1970 on Columbia Records. The album continued his experimentation with electric instruments previously featured on his critically acclaimed In a Silent Way album...

-period work), but by the mid-1970s this had moved towards more groove-orientated and pre-structured music (as epitomised by their hit single "Birdland").

Joe Zawinul
Joe Zawinul
Josef Erich Zawinul was an Austrian-American jazz keyboardist and composer.First coming to prominence with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, Zawinul went on to play with trumpeter Miles Davis, and to become one of the creators of jazz fusion, an innovative musical genre that combined jazz with...

's playing style was often dominated by quirky melodic improvisations (simultaneously bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...

-, ethnic-, and pop-sounding) combined with sparse but rhythmic big-band chords or bass lines. Having originally made his name as a pioneering electric piano
Electric piano
An electric piano is an electric musical instrument.Electric pianos produce sounds mechanically and the sounds are turned into electrical signals by pickups. Unlike a synthesizer, the electric piano is not an electronic instrument, but electro-mechanical. The earliest electric pianos were invented...

 player, he went on to consistently develop the role of the synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...

 in jazz during his time with Weather Report. Working with companies such as ARP
ARP Instruments, Inc.
ARP Instruments, Inc. was an American manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, founded by Alan Robert Pearlman in 1969. Best known for its line of synthesizers that emerged in the early 1970s, ARP closed its doors in 1981 due to financial difficulties...

 and Oberheim
Oberheim
Oberheim Electronics is an American company, founded in 1969 by Tom Oberheim , which manufactured audio synthesizers and a variety of other electronic musical instruments.-Oberheim Electronics:...

, Zawinul developed new ways of voicing and patching electronic tones for textures, ensemble roles (including emulations of traditional band instruments) and soloing. In Weather Report, he often employed a vocoder
Vocoder
A vocoder is an analysis/synthesis system, mostly used for speech. In the encoder, the input is passed through a multiband filter, each band is passed through an envelope follower, and the control signals from the envelope followers are communicated to the decoder...

 as well as pre-recorded sounds played (i.e., filtered and transposed) through a synthesizer, creating a very distinctive, often beautiful, synthesis of jazz harmonics and "noise" (which he referred to as "using all the sounds the world generates"). By the end of Weather Report’s career, Zawinul’s synthesized arrangements entirely dominated the band’s music.

Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.He is generally acknowledged to be jazz's greatest living composer, and many of his compositions have become standards...

 came to the group with a reputation as a dominant role as an instrumentalist, drawn from both his solo work and his contributions to Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

’ "second great quintet" during the 1960s. His choice not to follow the same approach with Weather Report led to some criticism of the group. During his time with Weather Report, Shorter was noted for generally playing saxophone with an economical, "listening" style. Rather than continually taking the lead, he would generally add subtle harmonic, melodic and/or rhythmic complexity by responding to other member's improvisations (although he could and did sometimes exercise a more frenetic style akin to that of John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...

 or Michael Brecker
Michael Brecker
Michael Leonard Brecker was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Acknowledged as "a quiet, gentle musician widely regarded as the most influential tenor saxophonist since John Coltrane," he has been awarded 15 Grammy Awards as both performer and composer and was inducted into Down Beat Jazz...

). Playing both tenor and soprano saxophones, Shorter continued to develop the role of the latter instrument in jazz, taking his cue from previous work by Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...

, Sidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer.He was one of the first important soloists in jazz , and was perhaps the first notable jazz saxophonist...

, Lucky Thompson
Lucky Thompson
Eli "Lucky" Thompson was a United States jazz tenor and soprano saxophonist...

 and Steve Lacy
Steve Lacy
Steve Lacy , born Steven Norman Lackritz in New York City, was a jazz saxophonist and composer recognized as one of the important players of soprano saxophone....

.

Weather Report maintained a consistent interest in a textured sound and developments in music technology and processing. Both Zawinul and original bassist Miroslav Vitouš
Miroslav Vitouš
Miroslav Ladislav Vitouš , is a Czech jazz bassist.-Biography:Born in Prague, he began the violin at age six, and started playing the piano at age ten, and bass at fourteen. As a young man in Europe, Vitouš was a competitive swimmer. One of his early music groups was the Junior Trio with his...

 experimented with electronic effects pedals (as generally used by rock guitarists) with Zawinul using them on electric piano and synthesizers and Vitouš on his upright bass (which he frequently bowed through distortion to create a second horn-like voice). The band’s third bass player, Jaco Pastorius
Jaco Pastorius
John Francis Anthony Pastorius III , known as Jaco Pastorius, was an American jazz musician and composer widely acknowledged as a virtuoso electric bass player....

, popularised the use of melodic soloing fretless bass guitar and string harmonics, as well as consolidating the driving R’n’B pulse in the band’s music which had been brought in by his predecessor Alphonso Johnson
Alphonso Johnson
Alphonso Johnson is an American jazz bassist who has been influential since the early 1970s.-Biography:Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Johnson started off as an upright bass player, but switched to the electric bass in his late teens. Beginning his career in the early 1970s, Johnson showed...

.

With the exception of a brief quartet period between 1978 and 1979, Weather Report’s instrumentation always included both a traditional trap set drummer and a second percussionist. For its first eight years of existence the group had difficulty finding a permanent drummer, moving through an approximate average of one drummer per year until Jaco Pastorius helped to recruit Peter Erskine
Peter Erskine
Peter Erskine is an American jazz drummer and composer. He has enjoyed a long and successful career as a session drummer, recording and touring with many famous jazz and rock artists, including Steely Dan and Weather Report...

 in 1978. Erskine and (later on) Omar Hakim
Omar Hakim
Omar Hakim is an American jazz, jazz fusion and pop music drummer.Hakim credits jazz vibraphonist Mike Mainieri with giving him his first break in 1980; Hakim appeared in a video with Mainieri called The Jazz Life and began working with singer Carly Simon through Mainieri...

 were the only Weather Report drummers that played with the band for more than two years.

Inception and formation

Joe Zawinul
Joe Zawinul
Josef Erich Zawinul was an Austrian-American jazz keyboardist and composer.First coming to prominence with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, Zawinul went on to play with trumpeter Miles Davis, and to become one of the creators of jazz fusion, an innovative musical genre that combined jazz with...

 and Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.He is generally acknowledged to be jazz's greatest living composer, and many of his compositions have become standards...

 first met and became friends in 1959 while they were playing in Maynard Ferguson
Maynard Ferguson
Maynard Ferguson was a Canadian jazz musician and bandleader. He came to prominence playing in Stan Kenton's orchestra, before forming his own band in 1957...

's Big Band
Big band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...

. Zawinul went on to play with Cannonball Adderley's group in the 1960s, while Shorter joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and then, in 1964, Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

's second great quintet. During this decade, both men made names for themselves as being among the best composers in jazz.

Zawinul would later join Shorter in contributing to the initial fusion
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...

 music recordings of Miles Davis, and both men were part of the studio groups which recorded the key Davis albums In a Silent Way
In a Silent Way
In a Silent Way is a studio album by American jazz musician Miles Davis, released July 30, 1969 on Columbia Records. Produced by Teo Macero, the album was recorded in one session date on February 18, 1969 at CBS 30th Street Studio B in New York City. Incorporating elements of classical sonata form,...

 and Bitches Brew
Bitches Brew
Bitches Brew is a studio double album by jazz musician Miles Davis, released in April 1970 on Columbia Records. The album continued his experimentation with electric instruments previously featured on his critically acclaimed In a Silent Way album...

. In consequence, Weather Report has often been seen as a spin-off from the Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

 bands of the late 1960s and early 1970s, although Zawinul was never part of Davis's touring line-up. Weather Report was initially formed in order to explore a more impressionistic and individualistic music (or, as Zawinul put it, “away from all that eight bars shit and then you go to the bridge…”)

Zawinul and Shorter recruited another Miles Davis associate, the classically-trained Czech-born bass player Miroslav Vitouš
Miroslav Vitouš
Miroslav Ladislav Vitouš , is a Czech jazz bassist.-Biography:Born in Prague, he began the violin at age six, and started playing the piano at age ten, and bass at fourteen. As a young man in Europe, Vitouš was a competitive swimmer. One of his early music groups was the Junior Trio with his...

, who’d previously played with Zawinul as well as with Herbie Mann, Bob Brookmeyer, Stan Getz and Chick Corea (Vitous has subsequently claimed that it was in fact Shorter and himself that founded Weather Report, with Shorter bringing in Zawinul afterwards.) All three men composed, and would form the core of the project. To complete the band, the trio brought in former McCoy Tyner
McCoy Tyner
McCoy Tyner is a jazz pianist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet and a long solo career.-Early life:...

 drummer Alphonse Mouzon
Alphonse Mouzon
Alphonse Mouzon is a well-known jazz-fusion drummer and percussionist, and the Chairman/CEO of Tenacious Records. He also composes, arranges and produces, as well as acts...

 and set about looking for a full-time auxiliary percussionist as they began to record their debut album. The initial recruits were session player Don Alias
Don Alias
Charles 'Don' Alias was an American jazz percussionist.Alias was best known for playing congas and other hand drums...

 and symphony orchestra percussionist Barbara Burton. During recording, Alias quarrelled with Zawinul - allegedly due to the latter being too dictatorial over the percussion approach - and the innovative Brazilian percussionist Airto Moreira
Airto Moreira
Airto Moreira is a Brazilian jazz drummer and percussionist. Airto is married to jazz singer Flora Purim, and their daughter Diana Moreira is also a singer. He currently resides in Los Angeles.-Biography:...

 (yet another Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

 alumnus) was brought in to complete the record.

The debut album and first concerts

Weather Report's self-titled debut album Weather Report caused a sensation in the jazz world on its arrival, thanks to the pedigree of the group’s members and their unorthodox approach to their music. The album featured a softer sound than would be the case in later years (predominantly using acoustic bass, with Shorter exclusively playing soprano saxophone
Soprano saxophone
The soprano saxophone is a variety of the saxophone, a woodwind instrument, invented in 1840. The soprano is the third smallest member of the saxophone family, which consists of the soprillo, sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass, contrabass and tubax.A transposing instrument pitched in...

, and with no synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...

s involved) but is still considered a classic of early fusion. It built on the avant-garde experiments which Zawinul and Shorter had pioneered with Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

 on Bitches Brew
Bitches Brew
Bitches Brew is a studio double album by jazz musician Miles Davis, released in April 1970 on Columbia Records. The album continued his experimentation with electric instruments previously featured on his critically acclaimed In a Silent Way album...

 (including an avoidance of head-and-chorus composition in favour of continuous rhythm and movement) but taking the music further. To emphasise the group’s rejection of standard methodology, the album opened with the inscrutable avant-garde atmospheric piece “Milky Way” (created by Shorter’s extremely muted saxophone inducing vibrations in Zawinul’s piano strings while the latter pedalled the instrument). Down Beat described the album as “music beyond category” (Dan Morgenstern, Down Beat, May 13, 1971) and awarded it Album of the Year in the magazine’s polls that year.

Although Moreira completed the recording of the debut Weather Report album, his existing commitments to Miles Davis meant that he was unable to play live with the group. Burton performed at Weather Report’s first residency - a week of performances at Paul’s Mall in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, prior to the album release - but could not come to business terms with Zawinul over tour plans. Zawinul subsequently removed both her album credit and that of Alias, leaving Moreira as the only percussionist credited. For the upcoming concerts, former Brazil '66 member Dom Um Romão
Dom Um Romão
Dom Um Romão was a Brazilian jazz drummer and percussionist. Noted for his expressive stylings with the fusion band Weather Report, Romão recorded with varied artists such as Cannonball Adderley, Paul Simon, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 and Tony Bennett...

 was recruited as the group’s new percussionist on Moreira’s own recommendation.

After further gigs in Philadelphia, Weather Report went on to a tour of Europe. Following disagreements on tour, Mouzon was soon replaced by another former McCoy Tyner
McCoy Tyner
McCoy Tyner is a jazz pianist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet and a long solo career.-Early life:...

 drummer, Eric Gravatt.

I Sing The Body Electric

In 1972 Weather Report released its second album, I Sing the Body Electric
I Sing the Body Electric (album)
I Sing the Body Electric is the second album released by Weather Report from 1972. The album includes two new members of the band: percussionist Dom Um Romão and drummer Eric Gravatt. The last three tracks were recorded live in concert in Tokyo, Japan on January 13, 1972...

, a release divided between different aspects of the group. The first side featured new studio recordings, while the second side was taken from live recordings of a concert in Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, featuring the full band lineup of Zawinul, Shorter, Vitouš, Gravatt and Um Romão (and later available in full as the Japan-only double album Live in Tokyo
Live in Tokyo (Weather Report album)
Live in Tokyo is Weather Report's first live album released. It was recorded on January 13, 1972. It was one of five sold out concerts played in Japan during January 1972...

).

The studio side featured compositions which used extended versions of the band including various guest performers, suggesting that Weather Report was not necessarily an integral jazz band but might possibly work as an expandable project set up to realise the music of its three composers. One track, "The Moors", featured a lengthy twelve-string guitar intro performed entirely by guitarist Ralph Towner
Ralph Towner
Ralph Towner is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger and bandleader. He plays the twelve-string guitar, classical guitar, piano, synthesizer, percussion and trumpet.-Biography:...

 (of Oregon and the Paul Winter
Paul Winter
Paul Winter is an American saxophonist , and is a six-time Grammy Award nominee.- Biography :Paul Winter attended Altoona Area High School and graduated in 1957...

 Consort). Zawinul’s "Unknown Soldier" featured performances by jazz/classical trumpet veteran Wilmer Wise and singers Yolande Bavan, Joshie Armstrong and Chapman Roberts (as well as English horn
Cor anglais
The cor anglais , or English horn , is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family....

 contributed by Andrew White III
Andrew White (saxophonist)
Andrew White is an American jazz/R'n'B multi-instrumentalist , musicologist and publisher.-Biography:...

, a cross-disciplinary multi-instrumentalist who was not only the oboist
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

 for the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra but also played bass guitar for both Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...

 and The Fifth Dimension
The Fifth Dimension
The 5th Dimension is an American popular music vocal group, whose repertoire also includes pop, R&B, soul, and jazz.Originally known as The Hi-Fi's, the 5th Dimension changed its name in late 1966, and was best-known during the late 1960s and early 1970s for popularizing the hits "Up, Up and Away",...

) The album also featured Zawinul’s first use of a synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...

 (an instrument with which he would become synonymous within jazz) and of sound effects.

I Sing the Body Electric
I Sing the Body Electric (album)
I Sing the Body Electric is the second album released by Weather Report from 1972. The album includes two new members of the band: percussionist Dom Um Romão and drummer Eric Gravatt. The last three tracks were recorded live in concert in Tokyo, Japan on January 13, 1972...

 also showed the first signs of a shift in the balance of control within the band, away from the more collective approach of the debut album. The following year would see this tendency develop further, primarily at the expense of Miroslav Vitouš
Miroslav Vitouš
Miroslav Ladislav Vitouš , is a Czech jazz bassist.-Biography:Born in Prague, he began the violin at age six, and started playing the piano at age ten, and bass at fourteen. As a young man in Europe, Vitouš was a competitive swimmer. One of his early music groups was the Junior Trio with his...

.

Sweetnighter and the move towards funk

On 1973's Sweetnighter
Sweetnighter
Sweetnighter is Weather Report's third studio album, released on Columbia Records in 1973. The group had recorded the songs in a five day stretch during February of the same year. It was to be the last album to feature founding member Miroslav Vitous as the primary bassist.-Track listing:#"Boogie...

, Weather Report began to abandon the primarily-acoustic group improvisation format, and the band started to take a new direction. Primarily at Zawinul’s instigation, Weather Report became more funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

- and groove-oriented, drawing more heavily on R&B
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...

 influences and dense electric keyboard work while adding more structure to both the prewritten and the improvisational sections. The last song on the album, Shorter's "Non-Stop Home", foreshadowed the band's developing hallmark sound (which would be even more in evidence on their next album).
The change in approach would affect the band deeply. Playing more repetitive, funky bass vamps did not suit Miroslav Vitouš' particular talents, and Zawinul also judged Eric Gravatt’s approach to be unsuitable for certain of the new pieces he had written. Andrew White III
Andrew White (saxophonist)
Andrew White is an American jazz/R'n'B multi-instrumentalist , musicologist and publisher.-Biography:...

 had returned to play occasional English horn on the album, but Zawinul also employed him on bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

 on three tracks in order to get the style of funk playing required. For similar reasons, the studio-based drummer/composer Herschel Dwellingham played drums on four of the album’s six tracks, replacing Gravatt entirely on three of them: on "Non-Stop Home", Dwellingham and Gravatt played together, with Gravatt the sole drummer only on "125th Street Congress". (Steve "Muruga" Booker also contributed percussion to the sessions alongside Dom Um Romão.)
Gravatt took his replacement in the studio sessions badly and quit the band at the end of recording, moving to Minneapolis to join the band Natural Life. Several years after Weather Report’s final demise, Zawinul would pay tribute to Gravatt’s skills and state that he had been the finest of the band’s "pure jazz" drummers.

With Gravatt gone and Dwellingham unavailable for touring, former Sly & the Family Stone
Sly & the Family Stone
Sly and the Family Stone were an American rock, funk, and soul band from San Francisco, California. Active from 1966 to 1983, the band was pivotal in the development of soul, funk, and psychedelic music...

 drummer Greg Errico played on the ‘’Sweetnighter’’ tour but did not stay with the band afterwards.

Split with Miroslav Vitouš, and end of first phase of band activity

By now Zawinul wished to continue further along the road to funk and was at creative loggerheads with Miroslav Vitouš, who preferred Weather Report’s original approach. Retrospectively, Zawinul would accuse Vitouš of being unable to play funk convincingly (something which Greg Errico would corroborate) and claim that he had not provided enough music for the band. Vitouš would counter that he had in fact brought in compositions but that Zawinul had been unable to play them. Vitouš has also accused Zawinul of having been "a first class manipulator" overly interested in commercial success.

When Shorter sided with Zawinul the original three-man partnership broke down acrimoniously and Vitouš left Weather Report. His final contribution to the band was to play bass on a single track which appeared on the band’s next album Mysterious Traveller ("American Tango", which, ironically, he’d co-written with Zawinul). Vitouš would go on to an illustrious career as a composer and to lead his own band. He has subsequently accused both Zawinul and Shorter of having used foul play to edge him out of the band, to deny the scale of his contribution to Weather Report’s history and creative approach, and to cheat him out of remuneration.

Vitouš’ departure marked the end of the first phase of Weather Report and the shift of overall creative dominance of the band to Josef Zawinul, although Shorter remained an integral, influential and vital part of the project.

Arrival of Alphonso Johnson, and Mysterious Traveller

Miroslav Vitouš’ replacement was the Philadelphian electric bass guitarist
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

 Alphonso Johnson
Alphonso Johnson
Alphonso Johnson is an American jazz bassist who has been influential since the early 1970s.-Biography:Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Johnson started off as an upright bass player, but switched to the electric bass in his late teens. Beginning his career in the early 1970s, Johnson showed...

 (formerly a sideman for the smooth-jazz player Chuck Mangione
Chuck Mangione
Charles Frank "Chuck" Mangione is an American flugelhorn player and composer who achieved international success in 1977 with his jazz-pop single, "Feels So Good." Mangione has released more than thirty albums since 1960.-Early life and career:...

). Recruited by Shorter, Johnson was a supple player more than capable of providing the funk element which Zawinul desired. He was also an early advocate of the Chapman Stick
Chapman Stick
The Chapman Stick is an electric musical instrument devised by Emmett Chapman in the early 1970s. A member of the guitar family, the Chapman Stick usually has ten or twelve individually tuned strings and has been used on music recordings to play bass lines, melody lines, chords or textures...

, which he can be heard playing on some of the live Weather Report recordings of the period.

Weather Report's breakout album - establishing what would become its hallmark sound - was 1974’s Mysterious Traveller
Mysterious Traveller
Mysterious Traveller is the fourth release of Weather Report. This album marked the end of bassist Miroslav Vitous's tenure with the band. Vitous was replaced by Alphonso Johnson. Another addition to the line-up is drummer Ishmael Wilburn...

, which also featured the debut of new drummer Ishmail Wilburn (although on the title track and “Nubian Sundance” his playing was doubled by that of Skip Hadden). The album continued Sweetnighter
Sweetnighter
Sweetnighter is Weather Report's third studio album, released on Columbia Records in 1973. The group had recorded the songs in a five day stretch during February of the same year. It was to be the last album to feature founding member Miroslav Vitous as the primary bassist.-Track listing:#"Boogie...

’s process of reducing the free-jazz elements of previous albums but also showed a more fully developed compositional technique. Zawinul exploited improvements in synthesizer technology on the recording and began to add processed sound effects such as cheering crowds (taken from a Rose Bowl football game), child-like cries (Zawinul's own son recorded in their home) and noises reminiscent of science-fiction aliens. Mysterious Traveller
Mysterious Traveller
Mysterious Traveller is the fourth release of Weather Report. This album marked the end of bassist Miroslav Vitous's tenure with the band. Vitous was replaced by Alphonso Johnson. Another addition to the line-up is drummer Ishmael Wilburn...

 was the second of Weather Report's albums to win Down Beat’s "Album of the Year" award and the first in their unprecedented run of four such consecutive awards.

According to Zawinul, Wilburn apparently “lost heart” on tour (despite performing well in the studio). To shore up the music the band hired another drummer, Darryl Brown, to play alongside him. At the end of the tour both Wilburn and Brown left the band (as did Dom Um Romão
Dom Um Romão
Dom Um Romão was a Brazilian jazz drummer and percussionist. Noted for his expressive stylings with the fusion band Weather Report, Romão recorded with varied artists such as Cannonball Adderley, Paul Simon, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 and Tony Bennett...

) and Weather Report was, once again, drummer-less.

Tale Spinnin

For the next set of studio sessions, Weather Report added a new Brazilian percussionist (Alyrio Lima) and a new drummer - Chuck Bazemore of The Delfonics
The Delfonics
The Delfonics are a pioneering Philadelphia soul singing group, most popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Their most notable hits include "La-La ", "Didn't I ", "Break Your Promise," "I'm Sorry," and "Ready or Not Here I Come "...

. Bazemore turned out to be unsuitable for the band and departed early in the sessions, with none of his recorded contributions being retained. Instead, the band called in the former Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...

 (and current Santana
Santana (band)
Santana is a rock band based around guitarist Carlos Santana and founded in the late 1960s. It first came to public attention after their performing the song "Soul Sacrifice" at the Woodstock Festival in 1969, when their Latin rock provided a contrast to other acts on the bill...

) drummer Leon "Ndugu" Chancler, who had been working on another project in an adjacent studio. Ndugu recorded with Weather Report for a week and performed all of the drum tracks for the forthcoming album. However, he declined to join as a permanent member, opting instead to continue with Santana
Santana (band)
Santana is a rock band based around guitarist Carlos Santana and founded in the late 1960s. It first came to public attention after their performing the song "Soul Sacrifice" at the Woodstock Festival in 1969, when their Latin rock provided a contrast to other acts on the bill...

. Johnson recruited his friend Chester Thompson
Chester Thompson
Chester Cortez Thompson is an American drummer and session musician.-Biography:Thompson made his name as a session drummer, going on to play in Frank Zappa's touring band and with Weather Report...

 (a former Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...

 sideman), who joined as drummer in time for the next tour.

The new album, Tale Spinnin'
Tale Spinnin'
Tale Spinnin' is Weather Report's fifth album, featuring the addition of Leon "Ndugu" Chancellor on the drums. Ndugu was recruited after Zawinul heard him play with Carlos Santana and liked what he heard. Weather Report was recording next door to Ndugu in the studio. He was asked to join them...

, was released in 1975 and was considered to be Weather Report’s most solid album to date. Ndugu had been well suited to Zawinul’s funk approach and his reliability during the sessions had made this the first Weather Report album to feature a consistent rhythm section (rather than a varied set of drummers, percussionists and bass players) since their debut. The album also made further strides in utilizing technological improvements in synthesizers, even making use of the gigantic studio-based TONTO
Tonto
Tonto may mean:* Tonto, a band of Apache native Americans.* Tonto, the fictional sidekick to the Lone Ranger.* "Tonto", a song by the American math rock band Battles, from their album Mirrored.** "Tonto+", the EP centered around said song....

 array. Conversely, it also showcased Wayne Shorter's playing to the extent of containing more saxophone
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

 solos than any other Weather Report album in the band’s entire career.

During the same year, Shorter also recorded the seminal and well received Latin-jazz Native Dancer
Native Dancer (album)
Native Dancer is the fifteenth album by Wayne Shorter. It is a collaboration with Brazilian musician Milton Nascimento, featuring some of his most acclaimed compositions, including "Ponta de Areia" and "Miracle of The Fishes"...

  under his own name (with the Brazilian composer and vocalist Milton Nascimento
Milton Nascimento
-Biography:Nascimento's mother was the maid Maria Nascimento. As a baby, Milton Nascimento was adopted by his mother's former employers: the couple Josino Brito Campos, a banker employee, mathematics teacher and electronic technician; and Lília Silva Campos, a music teacher and choir singer...

). Zawinul and Shorter’s continued dominance of the American jazz scene was emphasised when Tale Spinnin'
Tale Spinnin'
Tale Spinnin' is Weather Report's fifth album, featuring the addition of Leon "Ndugu" Chancellor on the drums. Ndugu was recruited after Zawinul heard him play with Carlos Santana and liked what he heard. Weather Report was recording next door to Ndugu in the studio. He was asked to join them...

 won the Down Beat best album award for 1975 (the third Weather Report album to do so) and Native Dancer
Native Dancer (album)
Native Dancer is the fifteenth album by Wayne Shorter. It is a collaboration with Brazilian musician Milton Nascimento, featuring some of his most acclaimed compositions, including "Ponta de Areia" and "Miracle of The Fishes"...

 was the runner-up.

Black Market: departure of Alphonso Johnson and arrival of Jaco Pastorius

By 1976's Black Market
Black Market (album)
Black Market is an instrumental jazz fusion album released by Weather Report in 1976. This album was produced by Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter. It was recorded in December 1975 and released in April 1976 through Columbia Records...

 album, Weather Report's music had evolved further from open-ended funk jams into more melody-oriented, concise forms, which also offered a greater mass-market appeal. Zawinul further consolidated his use of keyboard synthesizers while Shorter experimented with an early form of wind synthesizer, the Lyricon
Lyricon
The Lyricon is an electronic wind instrument, the first wind controller to be constructed.Invented by Bill Bernardi , it was manufactured by a company called Computone Inc in Massachusetts...

. The new album was also perhaps the most rock-oriented work which the group had produced to date, in part due to Chester Thompson
Chester Thompson
Chester Cortez Thompson is an American drummer and session musician.-Biography:Thompson made his name as a session drummer, going on to play in Frank Zappa's touring band and with Weather Report...

's presence in the lineup.

However, the album was recorded during yet another period of change for the group, with multiple personnel shuffles. Although Alyrio Lima played percussion on one track, he was replaced during the sessions by Don Alias
Don Alias
Charles 'Don' Alias was an American jazz percussionist.Alias was best known for playing congas and other hand drums...

 (his first appearance with the group since the debut album debacle) and by Alex Acuña
Alex Acuña
Alejandro Neciosup Acuña aka Alex Acuña is a Peruvian drummer and percussionist, in the Afro-Cuban jazz style.Born in Pativilca, Peru, Acuña played in local bands from the age of ten, and moved to Lima as a teenager. At the age of eighteen he joined the band of Perez Prado, and in 1967 he moved...

 (a Peruvian drummer and conga player based in Las Vegas who’d played with Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....

 and Ike Turner
Ike Turner
Isaac Wister Turner was an American musician, bandleader, songwriter, arranger, talent scout, and record producer. In a career that lasted more than half a century, his repertoire included blues, soul, rock, and funk...

, among others.) Alphonso Johnson
Alphonso Johnson
Alphonso Johnson is an American jazz bassist who has been influential since the early 1970s.-Biography:Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Johnson started off as an upright bass player, but switched to the electric bass in his late teens. Beginning his career in the early 1970s, Johnson showed...

 was also worn out from the band’s frequent changes of drummer and the strain that this put on the rhythm section. During a break in activity halfway through the recording of Black Market, Johnson opted to leave Weather Report in order to play with the Billy Cobham
Billy Cobham
William C. Cobham is a Panamanian American jazz drummer, composer and bandleader, who has called Switzerland home since the late 1970s....

/George Duke
George Duke
George Duke is a multi-faceted American musician, known as a keyboard pioneer, composer, singer and producer in both jazz and popular mainstream musical genres. He has worked with numerous acclaimed artists as arranger, music director, writer and co-writer, record producer and professor of music...

 Band (which featured a young John Scofield
John Scofield
John Scofield , often referred to as "Sco," is an American jazz guitarist and composer, who has played and collaborated with Miles Davis, Dave Liebman, Joe Henderson, Charles Mingus, Joey Defrancesco, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, Pat Martino, Mavis Staples, Phil Lesh, Billy Cobham,...

 on guitar).

Prior to his departure, Johnson played on all but two of the new album’s tracks. His replacement was Jaco Pastorius
Jaco Pastorius
John Francis Anthony Pastorius III , known as Jaco Pastorius, was an American jazz musician and composer widely acknowledged as a virtuoso electric bass player....

, a virtuoso
Virtuoso
A virtuoso is an individual who possesses outstanding technical ability in the fine arts, at singing or playing a musical instrument. The plural form is either virtuosi or the Anglicisation, virtuosos, and the feminine form sometimes used is virtuosa...

 fretless bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

ist from Florida who had been in touch with Zawinul for several years, and who came in to play on "Cannon Ball" and his own composition "Barbary Coast". Zawinul and Shorter had assumed that Chester Thompson would be departing alongside his friend Johnson, and for the second set of sessions they replaced him (on Jaco Pastorius’ recommendation) with the former Mahavishnu Orchestra drummer Narada Michael Walden
Narada Michael Walden
Narada Michael Walden is an American producer, drummer, singer, and songwriter. He was given the name Narada by guru Sri Chinmoy in the early 1970s and his musical career spans three decades, in which he was awarded several gold, platinum and multi-platinum awards...

. Although Walden played on several album tracks, he ultimately proved unsuitable. Thompson returned for the final Black Market
Black Market (album)
Black Market is an instrumental jazz fusion album released by Weather Report in 1976. This album was produced by Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter. It was recorded in December 1975 and released in April 1976 through Columbia Records...

 sessions, but left again after failing to gel as a rhythm section with Pastorius (whose style was much busier than that of Johnson).

Black Market
Black Market (album)
Black Market is an instrumental jazz fusion album released by Weather Report in 1976. This album was produced by Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter. It was recorded in December 1975 and released in April 1976 through Columbia Records...

 continued Weather Report’s ongoing run of success, selling well and being the fourth of the band’s albums to win Down Beat's album of the year award. For the subsequent tour, Alex Acuña
Alex Acuña
Alejandro Neciosup Acuña aka Alex Acuña is a Peruvian drummer and percussionist, in the Afro-Cuban jazz style.Born in Pativilca, Peru, Acuña played in local bands from the age of ten, and moved to Lima as a teenager. At the age of eighteen he joined the band of Perez Prado, and in 1967 he moved...

 moved from percussion to the drumkit, and Don Alias was replaced by the young Puerto Rican percussionist Manolo Badrena
Manolo Badrena
Manolo Badrena is a percussionist most noted for his work with Weather Report from 1976 to 1977. He has made contributions to over 100 recordings that span jazz, world music, pop, and Latin music...

, who had previously played with various Latin rock bands and with Art Blakey
Art Blakey
Arthur "Art" Blakey , known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community....

. The band made a very well received appearance at the Montreux Jazz Festival
Montreux Jazz Festival
The Montreux Jazz Festival is the best-known music festival in Switzerland and one of the most prestigious in Europe; it is held annually in early July in Montreux on the shores of Lake Geneva...

, which was filmed for future release.

The Jaco effect, Heavy Weather & "Birdland"

The recruitment of Jaco Pastorius
Jaco Pastorius
John Francis Anthony Pastorius III , known as Jaco Pastorius, was an American jazz musician and composer widely acknowledged as a virtuoso electric bass player....

 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. Pastorius was also a multi-instrumentalist (contributing drums, steel pan and mandocello
Mandocello
The mandocello is a plucked string instrument of the mandolin family. It has eight strings in four paired courses, tuned in 5ths like a mandolin, but is larger, and tuned CC-GG-dd-aa . It is to the mandolin what the cello is to the violin.-Construction:Mandocello construction is similar to the...

 to the latest recording sessions), a gifted composer (eventually responsible for some signature Weather Report pieces such as "Teen Town" and "Three Views of a Secret"), and a useful production foil for Zawinul due to his knowledge of recording studios and techniques. Finally, Pastorius’s stagecraft and aggressive showmanship helped the band to bring in a new audience.
The band’s next album was 1977’s acclaimed Heavy Weather
Heavy Weather (album)
The album received positive reviews since its publication. American music journalist Richard Ginell gave the album the maximum rating, five stars out of five, and concluded his review for Allmusic by stating that, "[r]eleased just as the jazz-rock movement began to run out of steam, this landmark...

, which proved to be the band's most successful recording in terms of sales while still retaining wide critical acclaim. It contained the band’s biggest hit, the propulsive and danceable "Birdland" (highlighting Pastorius’ singing bass lines and Zawinul’s synthesized ensemble brass) which became a pop hit and later became a jazz standard
Jazz standard
Jazz standards are musical compositions which are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be...

. Weather Report appeared on the Burt Sugarman
Burt Sugarman
Burt Sugarman is an American television producer best known for producing the 1970s game show Celebrity Sweepstakes, and The Richard Pryor Show.He also produced The Midnight Special and The Wizard of Odds in the 1970s....

-produced series The Midnight Special
The Midnight Special (TV series)
The Midnight Special is an American musical variety series that aired on NBC during the 1970s and early 1980s, created and produced by Burt Sugarman. It premiered as a special on August 19, 1972, then began its run as a regular series on February 2, 1973; its last episode was on May 1, 1981...

, performing both "Birdland" and "Teen Town". Heavy Weather
Heavy Weather (album)
The album received positive reviews since its publication. American music journalist Richard Ginell gave the album the maximum rating, five stars out of five, and concluded his review for Allmusic by stating that, "[r]eleased just as the jazz-rock movement began to run out of steam, this landmark...

 would dominate Weather Report's disc awards, including their last Down Beat "Album of the Year" award.

During this period, Pastorius’ strong professional connection with Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...

 (for whom he played bass throughout the latter half of the 1970s) led to another musical connection. Over the next few years, Mitchell would hire the Weather Report line-up en masse (although without Zawinul in each case) to play on her studio albums Don Juan's Reckless Daughter
Don Juan's Reckless Daughter
Don Juan's Reckless Daughter is a 1977 double album by the folk/pop/rock musician Joni Mitchell. It is unusual for its experimental style, expanding even further on the jazz fusion sound of Mitchell's Hejira from the year before...

 and Mingus
Mingus (album)
Mingus is the tenth studio album by Joni Mitchell, and a collaboration with jazz musician Charles Mingus. Recorded in the months before his death, it would be Mingus's final musical project; the album is wholly dedicated to him....

.

Mr. Gone - the studio as palette

By 1978 the band was once again without either a full-time drummer and percussionist, with Alex Acuña
Alex Acuña
Alejandro Neciosup Acuña aka Alex Acuña is a Peruvian drummer and percussionist, in the Afro-Cuban jazz style.Born in Pativilca, Peru, Acuña played in local bands from the age of ten, and moved to Lima as a teenager. At the age of eighteen he joined the band of Perez Prado, and in 1967 he moved...

 having returned to Las Vegas for a career as a studio musician and Manolo Badrena
Manolo Badrena
Manolo Badrena is a percussionist most noted for his work with Weather Report from 1976 to 1977. He has made contributions to over 100 recordings that span jazz, world music, pop, and Latin music...

 having been fired for "non-musical reasons." Shorter had been focusing 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 favor 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
Mr. Gone (album)
Mr. Gone is Weather Report's eighth studio album, and is perhaps best known for receiving a "one-star" rating by Down Beat magazine.According to Down Beat magazine, "Zawinul, Shorter, et al. have made the controversial music a commercial product; unfortunately .....

.

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
Steve Gadd
Steve Gadd is an American session and studio drummer, notable for his work with popular musicians from a wide range of genres.-Biography:...

, and Peter Erskine
Peter Erskine
Peter Erskine is an American jazz drummer and composer. He has enjoyed a long and successful career as a session drummer, recording and touring with many famous jazz and rock artists, including Steely Dan and Weather Report...

 (the latter an ex-Stan Kenton
Stan Kenton
Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....

/Maynard Ferguson
Maynard Ferguson
Maynard Ferguson was a Canadian jazz musician and bandleader. He came to prominence playing in Stan Kenton's orchestra, before forming his own band in 1957...

 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. The album also featured vocal contributions from Deniece Williams
Deniece Williams
June Deniece Chandler known by her stage name Deniece Williams is an American Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and record producer who achieved success in the 1970s and 1980s...

 and Earth Wind and Fire leader Maurice White
Maurice White
Maurice White is a Grammy Award–winning American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, arranger. He is the older brother of Verdine White and Fred White and the leader and founder of the band Earth, Wind & Fire...

.

Notoriously, Mr. Gone
Mr. Gone (album)
Mr. Gone is Weather Report's eighth studio album, and is perhaps best known for receiving a "one-star" rating by Down Beat magazine.According to Down Beat magazine, "Zawinul, Shorter, et al. have made the controversial music a commercial product; unfortunately .....

 received only a 1-star review rating from Down Beat magazine after a string of group releases which had all pulled a 5-star rating. The group arranged for a rebuttal interview with the magazine to defend their efforts. Zawinul and Pastorius were defiant in their responses to the interviewer, Shorter more philosophical, and Erskine the most reticent of the four.

Rock star jazz tours

By now Weather Report was a quartet of Zawinul, Shorter, Pastorius and Erskine and (for the first time) had dispensed with the auxiliary percussionist role which had been integral since the band’s inception. Instead, all four members doubled on percussion at various points in live performances. Zawinul would comment that this sleeker, less crowded sound provided more listening range and made the music less chaotic now that the band were now focussing more on melody and harmony.

The larger scale and multimedia staging of the band’s tours (complete with multiple stagehands, laser and film projections) began to take on the kind of rock-star proportions mostly unknown in jazz circles. The 1979 double live album 8:30
8:30
8:30 is an album by the jazz fusion group Weather Report. It was recorded live except for tracks 10-13, which were studio recorded. Among other titles, it features a live version of the group's signature piece "Birdland". The album won a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Fusion Performance.-History:The...

 (which won that year’s Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

 for Best Jazz Fusion Performance
Grammy Award for Best Jazz Fusion Performance
The Grammy Award for Best Jazz Fusion Performance was an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for works containing quality jazz fusion performances...

) was recorded on the Mr Gone tour and captured the direct power and energy of this lineup of Weather Report. Zawinul would later describe this lineup as “one of the greatest bands of all time! That band was a hummer!"

Between March 2–4, 1979, Weather Report travelled to Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...

, Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

, in order to participate in the historic Havana Jam
Havana Jam
Havana Jam was a three-day music festival that took place at the Karl Marx Theater, in Havana, Cuba, on 2-4 March, 1979. It was sponsored by Bruce Lundvall, the president of Columbia Records, Jerry Masucci, the president of Fania Records, and the Cuban Ministry of Culture.The festival included, on...

 festival, a break in mutual Cuban/American political hostilities which saw American artists such as Stephen Stills
Stephen Stills
Stephen Arthur Stills is an American guitarist and singer/songwriter best known for his work with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills & Nash . He has performed on a professional level in several other bands as well as maintaining a solo career at the same time...

, the CBS Jazz All-Stars, Bonnie Bramlett
Bonnie Bramlett
Bonnie Bramlett is an American singer and sometime actress known for her distinctive vocals in rock and pop music. This began in the mid 1960s as a backing singer, forming the husband-and-wife team of Delaney & Bonnie, and continuing to the present day as a solo artist.-Life and career:Bramlett...

, Kris Kristofferson
Kris Kristofferson
Kristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson is an American musician, actor, and writer. He is known for hits such as "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night"...

, Rita Coolidge
Rita Coolidge
Rita Coolidge is a multiple Grammy Award-winning American vocalist. During the 1970s and 1980s, she charted hits on Billboard's Pop, Country, Adult Contemporary and Jazz charts.-Career:...

 and Billy Joel
Billy Joel
William Martin "Billy" Joel is an American musician and pianist, singer-songwriter, and classical composer. Since releasing his first hit song, "Piano Man", in 1973, Joel has become the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States, according to...

 play alongside Cuban artists such as Irakere
Irakere
Irakere is a Cuban band founded by Armando de Sequeira Romeu Music Director and composer, and by pianist Chucho Valdés in 1973...

, Pacho Alonso
Pacho Alonso
Pacho Alonso was a Cuban singer and bandleader from Santiago de Cuba who is attributed with creating the musical form Pilón....

, Tata Güines
Tata Güines
Tata Güines was a Cuban percussionist on the tumbadora, or conga drum, as well as a composer. He was important in the first generation of Afro-Cuban jazz....

 and Orquesta Aragón
Orquesta Aragón
Orquesta Aragón was formed on 30 September 1939, by Orestes Aragón Cantero in Cienfuegos, Cuba. The band originally had the name Ritmica 39, then Ritmica Aragón before settling on its final form. Though they did not create the Cha-cha-cha, they were arguably the best charanga in Cuba during 1950s...

. Another featured performance was by the Trio of Doom
Trio of Doom
The Trio of Doom was a short-lived jazz fusion power trio consisting of John McLaughlin on guitar, Jaco Pastorius on bass, and Tony Williams on drums...

 (in which Pastorius played alongside John McLaughlin
John McLaughlin (musician)
John McLaughlin , also known as Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, is an English guitarist, bandleader and composer...

 and Tony Williams). Weather Report’s performance featured in Havana Jam '79
Havana Jam '79
Havana Jam ’79 is an hour-long documentary written, produced and directed in 2009 by Cuban author, journalist and filmmaker Ernesto Juan Castellanos....

, Ernesto Juan Castellanos
Ernesto Juan Castellanos
Ernesto Juan Castellanos, born in 1963, is a freelance author, translator, journalist, filmmaker and researcher who lives and works in Havana, Cuba. In 1996, he started organizing the Cuban Beatles conventions, which opened doors to the world of writing...

' documentary celebrating the event.

During the year’s touring, Shorter began to feel sidelined by the current Weather Report’s aggressive drive and the sometimes overly-macho musical interplay between Pastorius and Zawinul, which on at least one occasion squeezed him out of band performance. At one point, he claimed to a journalist that he would be leaving the band within a few months. In the event, Shorter resolved his major differences with his bandmates - but the near-split appeared to inform Weather Report’s next development, which was a step back towards a purer jazz approach.

Night Passage and Weather Report (1982)

At the beginning of 1980, Pastorius recruited hand-drummer Robert Thomas Jr. (a fellow Floridan whom he’d jammed with previously) into the band. Thomas featured on 1980’s Night Passage
Night Passage (Weather Report album)
-Personnel:*Josef Zawinul – Keyboards*Wayne Shorter – Saxophones*Jaco Pastorius – Bass*Peter Erskine – Drums*Robert Thomas Jr. – Hand drums...

 album. A tighter and more traditional recording than previous releases, the record featured a more prominent role for Shorter, a strong element of bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...

 and a nod to jazz’s golden age via a high-speed cover of Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...

’s "Rockin’ in Rhythm" (showing off Zawinul’s pioneering and ever-increasing ability to create synthetic big-band sounds on his synthesizers).

By now, Pastorius was displaying signs of the mental instability and substance abuse
Substance abuse
A substance-related disorder is an umbrella term used to describe several different conditions associated with several different substances .A substance related disorder is a condition in which an individual uses or abuses a...

 problems which would ultimately wreck his career, and the close relationship between him and Zawinul was becoming strained as Zawinul tired of Pastorius’ showmanship onstage (beginning to feel that it detracted from the music). Towards the end of the year, Pastorius began working on his long-delayed second solo album (Word of Mouth
Word of Mouth (Jaco Pastorius album)
Word of Mouth was the second album by Jaco Pastorius, released in 1981 while the bassist was a member of Weather Report, and also the name of a big band group that Pastorius assembled and with whom he toured from 1980 to 1986...

) in New York, while Zawinul worked on new Weather Report material in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

.

Weather Report’s next album Weather Report - their second eponymous release following their 1970 debut - was recorded in 1981, although it was not released for another year. Zawinul’s dominance as instrumentalist and composer (as well as group director) was even more pronounced on this album. Much of the band’s sound was created by synthesized orchestration, and the music was increasingly written out rather than improvised. Pastorius was by now thoroughly frustrated with Zawinul’s approach, especially now that the keyboard player had increasingly taken control of basslines by both writing them out for Pastorius to play from manuscript and by also playing or doubling most of them on his ARP Quadra
ARP Quadra
Introduced in 1979 the 61 key ARP Quadra is an analog musical synthesizer that was produced by ARP Instruments, Inc. from 1978 to 1981 in a failed attempt to catch up to the "lead" taken by Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 with its fully programmable memory. Moog made a similar attempt with the...

 synthesizer.

In the event, Pastorius spent more of his creative attention on the Word of Mouth
Word of Mouth (Jaco Pastorius album)
Word of Mouth was the second album by Jaco Pastorius, released in 1981 while the bassist was a member of Weather Report, and also the name of a big band group that Pastorius assembled and with whom he toured from 1980 to 1986...

 project, with his only writing for the Weather Report album being his contribution to a single group-composed piece. Shorter (who only contributed one whole composition to the 1982 album beyond group-written work) was already taking a more philosophical approach. He later commented that "for a long time in Weather Report, I abstained. I elected not to do things."

Departure of Pastorius, Erskine and Thomas

The delay in releasing the 1982 Weather Report album had the side effect of breaking up the current line-up of the band. By late 1981 Pastorius was putting together the Word of Mouth
Word of Mouth (Jaco Pastorius album)
Word of Mouth was the second album by Jaco Pastorius, released in 1981 while the bassist was a member of Weather Report, and also the name of a big band group that Pastorius assembled and with whom he toured from 1980 to 1986...

 Big Band (which included Erskine) for concert dates in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, on the assumption that 1982 would be a Weather Report rest year. However, previously cancelled tour dates had left the band open to potentially crippling lawsuits and an obligation to play replacement concerts.

When scheduled, these clashed with the Word of Mouth concerts and led to Pastorius leaving Weather Report, albeit relatively amicably. As Zawinul put it "We had no choice. We had to find another bass player… Basically, Jaco went his way and we had to go ours." Erskine’s own commitment to Word of Mouth (and a subsequent summer commitment to Steps Ahead
Steps Ahead
Steps Ahead is a jazz fusion group and the brainchild of vibraphonist Mike Mainieri. According to the liner notes of the group's 1983 debut album , entitled Steps Ahead, "Steps began as a part-time venture in 1979 at Seventh Avenue South, a New York City nightclub." The group began releasing...

) meant that he too had to be replaced, while Robert Thomas Jr. was simply dismissed. Down to a duo and with tour commitments looming, Zawinul and Shorter were obliged to quickly assemble a new band.

Recruiting a new band, and Procession

On the recommendation of Michael Urbaniak, Zawinul and Shorter recruited the 23-year-old drummer Omar Hakim
Omar Hakim
Omar Hakim is an American jazz, jazz fusion and pop music drummer.Hakim credits jazz vibraphonist Mike Mainieri with giving him his first break in 1980; Hakim appeared in a video with Mainieri called The Jazz Life and began working with singer Carly Simon through Mainieri...

, a talented session player and multi-instrumentalist who had played with a variety of musicians (including Mike Mainieri
Mike Mainieri
Michael T. Mainieri, Jr. is a vibraphonist best known for his work with the jazz fusion group Steps Ahead....

, David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...

 and Carly Simon
Carly Simon
Carly Elisabeth Simon is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and children's author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records, and has since been the recipient of two Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe Award for her work...

) and who was immediately entrusted with recruiting the rest of the new rhythm section. Having failed to secure Marcus Miller
Marcus Miller
Marcus Miller is an American jazz composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist. Miller is best known as a bassist, working with trumpeter Miles Davis, singer Luther Vandross, and saxophonist David Sanborn, as well as maintaining a prolific solo career...

 as bass guitarist, Hakim selected Victor Bailey (a recent graduate from the Berklee College of Music whom Hakim had played with while backing Miriam Makeba
Miriam Makeba
Miriam Makeba , nicknamed Mama Africa, was a Grammy Award winning South African singer and civil rights activist....

). He also recruited percussion/concertina player José Rossy, whom he’d worked with in Labelle
Labelle
Labelle is an American all female singing group who were a popular vocal group of the 1960s and 1970s. The group was formed after the disbanding of two rival girl groups in the Philadelphia/Trenton areas, the Ordettes and the Del-Capris, forming as a new version of the former group, later changing...

.

The new Weather Report went straight onto tour, where they were received well by audiences and critics as a band which had gained in subtlety and integrity whatever they had sacrificed in power and attack. Zawinul would profess himself to be very pleased with the lineup. The music developed on tour was later recorded for the 1983 album Procession
Procession (album)
Procession is the tenth studio album from Weather Report. It is the first album to feature the newest lineup of Weather Report. Victor Bailey replaced Jaco Pastorius as the bassist and Omar Hakim replaced Peter Erskine as the drummer. José Rossy was also added to the line up as percussionist...

, which showed the band beginning to make something of a return to the “world music” which it had pioneered in the mid-1970s and featured a cameo appearance from The Manhattan Transfer
The Manhattan Transfer
The Manhattan Transfer is an American vocal music group. There have been two manifestations of the group, with Tim Hauser being the only person to be part of both...

. The consistent, carnivalesque atmosphere of Procession
Procession (album)
Procession is the tenth studio album from Weather Report. It is the first album to feature the newest lineup of Weather Report. Victor Bailey replaced Jaco Pastorius as the bassist and Omar Hakim replaced Peter Erskine as the drummer. José Rossy was also added to the line up as percussionist...

 led it to be praised by Down Beat for its “unity and joy” (John Diliberto, Down Beat, June 1983) and it has come to be seen as one of the best Weather Report albums.

Domino Theory and Sportin’ Life

Continuing with the same lineup, Weather Report recorded the Domino Theory
Domino Theory (album)
Domino Theory is the eleventh studio album by Weather Report. It is the second album to feature the Hakim-Bailey-Rossy rhythm section.-Track listing:All tracks composed by Joe Zawinul, except where indicated.#Can It Be Done – 4:02...

 album in 1984, with Hakim stepping into Jaco Pastorius’ old role as Zawinul’s co-producer. The album was Weather Report’s first album to employ drum machines and samplers (the Emulator
Emulator
In computing, an emulator is hardware or software or both that duplicates the functions of a first computer system in a different second computer system, so that the behavior of the second system closely resembles the behavior of the first system...

), furthering developing the band’s involvement with technology, and also featured a guest vocal from Carl Anderson
Carl Anderson
Carl Anderson may refer to:*Carl Anderson , American college football coach*Carl Anderson , American art director*Carl Anderson , North Dakota State Treasurer...

. Critics, however, queried the band’s lack of development or musical innovation, and speculated that this might be connected to a lack of creative tension and to Zawinul’s now-entirely unchallenged dominance. The band was also beginning to suffer from the revival of more traditionally-styled jazz at the time, which made it harder to market jazz fusion.

Percussionist and singer Mino Cinélu
Mino Cinelu
Mino Cinelu is a French musician. He plays multiple instruments. He is a composer, programmer and producer; and is most often associated primarily for his work as a jazz percussionist.-Biography:Cinelu was born in Saint-Cloud, Hauts-de-Seine...

 replaced Rossy in the spring of 1984 and appeared on the band’s video release Live in Japan (reissued on DVD in 2007). The same lineup played on 1985’s Sportin' Life
Sportin' Life
Sportin' Life is the twelfth studio album by Weather Report, released in 1985. Although featuring many more vocal performances than any of their previous albums, words are rare and most vocals are chants from Bobby McFerrin or Carl Anderson...

 album, which included a cover of Marvin Gaye
Marvin Gaye
Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. , better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range....

’s “What’s Going On” and appearances by Bobby McFerrin
Bobby McFerrin
Robert "Bobby" McFerrin, Jr. is an American vocalist and conductor. He is best known for his 1988 hit song "Don't Worry, Be Happy". He is a ten-time Grammy Award winner.-Life:...

 and Carl Anderson
Carl Anderson
Carl Anderson may refer to:*Carl Anderson , American college football coach*Carl Anderson , American art director*Carl Anderson , North Dakota State Treasurer...

. In keeping with Zawinul's technological curiosity the album heralded the arrival of MIDI, which entirely suited Zawinul’s compositional and recording methods by allowing him to rapidly and inexpensively write, demo and record music via a set of synthesizers. Critics noted that Shorter seemed more suited to this album than he had to its predecessor, contributing more; and the album was praised for its energetic compositions.

By the time of the album’s release, Shorter and Zawinul had opted not to tour the material. Instead, they would take a break for long-delayed solo projects. The principals claimed that the band was still together (despite Hakim’s involvement with Sting’s band and Bailey’s with Steps Ahead
Steps Ahead
Steps Ahead is a jazz fusion group and the brainchild of vibraphonist Mike Mainieri. According to the liner notes of the group's 1983 debut album , entitled Steps Ahead, "Steps began as a part-time venture in 1979 at Seventh Avenue South, a New York City nightclub." The group began releasing...

), but it was also notable that Weather Report’s contract with Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

 had just expired, leaving both parties open to other options.

The finale – This is This!

Despite Zawinul and Shorter’s claims, Sportin' Life
Sportin' Life
Sportin' Life is the twelfth studio album by Weather Report, released in 1985. Although featuring many more vocal performances than any of their previous albums, words are rare and most vocals are chants from Bobby McFerrin or Carl Anderson...

 was in effect the last proper Weather Report record, as both were finding that the refreshing nature of other projects was more satisfying and generally felt that the band had run its course. However, it turned out that Columbia Records was contractually owed one more Weather Report record, resulting in the 1986 creation of This Is This!
This is This!
This Is This! is the thirteenth and final studio album by Weather Report. The band thought that they had fulfilled their contract with Columbia Records with the release of the previous album Sportin' Life. This, however, was not the case and the band had to release one more record...



In comparison to previous records, This Is This!
This is This!
This Is This! is the thirteenth and final studio album by Weather Report. The band thought that they had fulfilled their contract with Columbia Records with the release of the previous album Sportin' Life. This, however, was not the case and the band had to release one more record...

 was assembled during gaps in various players’ schedules (Zawinul has referred to the album having been put together on “holiday” time). With Omar Hakim
Omar Hakim
Omar Hakim is an American jazz, jazz fusion and pop music drummer.Hakim credits jazz vibraphonist Mike Mainieri with giving him his first break in 1980; Hakim appeared in a video with Mainieri called The Jazz Life and began working with singer Carly Simon through Mainieri...

 now too busy with Sting to play on more than one of the album’s tracks, Zawinul recruited Peter Erskine
Peter Erskine
Peter Erskine is an American jazz drummer and composer. He has enjoyed a long and successful career as a session drummer, recording and touring with many famous jazz and rock artists, including Steely Dan and Weather Report...

 to play the rest. Cinelu and Bailey were both flown in for a few days to record: both also contributed one composition each, with the remainder being written by Zawinul.

Significantly, Shorter spent little more time on the project than Bailey or Cinelu, contributed no compositions at all, and was not even present on many of the album’s tracks: Zawinul attempted to compensate for this by bringing in guitarist Carlos Santana
Carlos Santana
Carlos Augusto Alves Santana is a Mexican rock guitarist. Santana became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, Santana, which pioneered rock, salsa and jazz fusion...

 to contribute. On release the album received a disappointing review from the critics (including several pannings) and bandmembers have subsequently admitted that it was a substandard release.

Split (and Weather Update)

By February 1986, Weather Report was over, a fact confirmed by a story in the San Diego Union-Tribune announcing that Shorter had left the band to concentrate on solo work.

Having reluctantly agreed with Shorter that he would no longer use the band name, Zawinul attempted to reform the Sportin' Life
Sportin' Life
Sportin' Life is the twelfth studio album by Weather Report, released in 1985. Although featuring many more vocal performances than any of their previous albums, words are rare and most vocals are chants from Bobby McFerrin or Carl Anderson...

 lineup (minus Shorter but adding guitarist John Scofield
John Scofield
John Scofield , often referred to as "Sco," is an American jazz guitarist and composer, who has played and collaborated with Miles Davis, Dave Liebman, Joe Henderson, Charles Mingus, Joey Defrancesco, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, Pat Martino, Mavis Staples, Phil Lesh, Billy Cobham,...

) under the new name Weather Update. In the event, guitarist Steve Khan
Steve Khan
Steve Khan is an American jazz guitarist.Born in Los Angeles, California, Khan is known for his work with artists such as Steely Dan, Billy Joel, Michael Franks, Hubert Laws, Billy Cobham, Jack DeJohnette, James Brown, Maynard Ferguson, and Weather Report...

 and former Weather Report percussionist Robert Thomas Jr. replaced Scofield and Cinelu respectively. Weather Update toured to high expectations but unfavourable critical responses, and Zawinul dissolved the band in 1987. (A Weather Update DVD – Joe Zawinul: Weather Update - was released in 2005).

Releases since the band's breakup

A "post band" Weather Report double CD called Live and Unreleased
Live and Unreleased (album)
Live and Unreleased is a compilation of live recordings of Weather Report. The tracks are taken from live performances that took place from November 25, 1975 to June 3, 1983...

 was made available in 2002, featuring vintage live recordings made during the late 1970s/early 1980s with various personnel. In September 2006 Columbia/Legacy released a Weather Report boxed set, Forecast: Tomorrow
Forecast: Tomorrow
Forecast: Tomorrow is a 3-CD/1-DVD career-spanning compilation of recordings of Weather Report. The 37 tracks are presented chronologically, beginning with three tracks pre–Weather Report, from ensemble duties with Miles Davis , Cannonball Adderley , and from a Shorter solo album...

. It includes 3 CDs of mostly previously released material (from 1970 to 1985, excluding This is This!) and a DVD of the entire September 29, 1978, performance (with Erskine and Pastorius) in Offenbach, Germany, not previously available.

A DVD video of the 1976 Montreux Jazz Festival performance (featuring the Heavy Weather lineup of Pastorius, Acuna, and Badrena) has become available as well. Columbia/Legacy have also re-released the 1984 Live in Japan concert on DVD.

In 2011, the Zawinul estate, in conjunction with an independent label, released a 40th anniversary commemorative trilogy of previously unavailable Weather Report live shows: In March Live in Berlin 1975 was released both on vinyl and as a CD/DVD set; in June the Live in Offenbach 1978 DVD was re-released together with a previously unavailable double CD of the complete show; in October Live in Cologne 1983 was released as both DVD and double CD.

Discography

In a career spanning sixteen years from 1970 to 1986, Weather Report released fourteen studio albums, two live albums and five singles. Several other live and compilation albums have been released after the break-up of the band, and many of Weather Report's tracks appear on Various Artists albums.

Main albums
The following table shows the main albums released by Weather Report. For more detailed information, please see: Weather Report discography
Weather Report discography
The discography of Weather Report, an influential American jazz band with a career lasting sixteen years between 1970 and 1986, consists of fourteen studio albums, three live albums, eleven compilation albums, five singles, one B-side, and six video albums....

.
Year Album
1971 Weather Report
  • 1st studio album
  • #7 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart (1971)
  • #191 on The Billboard 200 chart (1971)
  • Jazz Album of the Year at the 36th Down Beat
    Down Beat
    Down Beat is an American magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond" to indicate its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois...

     Readers Poll
  • Grand Prix Award, Best Band of the Year, and Best Selling Jazz Album of the Year on the Swing Journal magazine
1972 I Sing the Body Electric
I Sing the Body Electric (album)
I Sing the Body Electric is the second album released by Weather Report from 1972. The album includes two new members of the band: percussionist Dom Um Romão and drummer Eric Gravatt. The last three tracks were recorded live in concert in Tokyo, Japan on January 13, 1972...

  • 2nd studio album
  • #147 on The Billboard 200 chart (1972)
  • Live in Tokyo
    Live in Tokyo (Weather Report album)
    Live in Tokyo is Weather Report's first live album released. It was recorded on January 13, 1972. It was one of five sold out concerts played in Japan during January 1972...

  • Live album recorded on January 13, 1972 at the Shibuya Kokaido Hall, Tokyo
    Tokyo
    , ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

    , Japan
    Japan
    Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

     
  • 1973 Sweetnighter
    Sweetnighter
    Sweetnighter is Weather Report's third studio album, released on Columbia Records in 1973. The group had recorded the songs in a five day stretch during February of the same year. It was to be the last album to feature founding member Miroslav Vitous as the primary bassist.-Track listing:#"Boogie...

  • 3rd studio album
  • #2 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart (1973)
  • #41 on the Billboard Top R&B Albums
    Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
    Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The name of the chart was changed from Top R&B Albums in 1999...

     chart (1973)
  • #85 on The Billboard 200 chart (1973)
  • Jazz Group of the Year at the 38th Down Beat Readers Poll
  • 1974 Mysterious Traveller
    Mysterious Traveller
    Mysterious Traveller is the fourth release of Weather Report. This album marked the end of bassist Miroslav Vitous's tenure with the band. Vitous was replaced by Alphonso Johnson. Another addition to the line-up is drummer Ishmael Wilburn...

  • 4th studio album
  • #2 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart (1974)
  • #31 on the Billboard Top R&B Albums chart (1974)
  • #46 on The Billboard 200 chart (1974)
  • Jazz Album of the Year and Jazz Group of the Year at the 39th Down Beat Readers Poll
  • 1975 Tale Spinnin'
    Tale Spinnin'
    Tale Spinnin' is Weather Report's fifth album, featuring the addition of Leon "Ndugu" Chancellor on the drums. Ndugu was recruited after Zawinul heard him play with Carlos Santana and liked what he heard. Weather Report was recording next door to Ndugu in the studio. He was asked to join them...

  • 5th studio album
  • #3 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart (1975)
  • #12 on the Billboard Top R&B Albums chart (1975)
  • #31 on The Billboard 200 chart (1975)
  • Jazz Album of the Year and Jazz Group of the Year at the 40th Down Beat Readers Poll
  • 1976 Black Market
    Black Market (album)
    Black Market is an instrumental jazz fusion album released by Weather Report in 1976. This album was produced by Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter. It was recorded in December 1975 and released in April 1976 through Columbia Records...

  • 6th studio album
  • #2 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart (1976)
  • #20 on the Billboard Top R&B Albums chart (1976)
  • #42 on The Billboard 200 chart (1976)
  • Jazz Album of the Year and Jazz Group of the Year at the 41st Down Beat Readers Poll
  • 1977 Heavy Weather
    Heavy Weather (album)
    The album received positive reviews since its publication. American music journalist Richard Ginell gave the album the maximum rating, five stars out of five, and concluded his review for Allmusic by stating that, "[r]eleased just as the jazz-rock movement began to run out of steam, this landmark...

  • 7th studio album
  • #1 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart (1977)
  • #30 on The Billboard 200 chart (1977)
  • #33 on the Billboard Top R&B Albums chart (1977)
  • Jazz Album of the Year and Jazz Group of the Year at the 42nd Down Beat Readers Poll
  • Record of the Year at the Jazz Forum People's Poll
  • Swing Journal's Silver Disc Award
  • Playboy
    Playboy
    Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...

    's Jazz Record and Jazz Band of the Year
  • Record World
    Record World
    Record World magazine was one of the three main music industry trade publications in the United States, along with Billboard and Cash Box magazines. It was founded in 1946 under the name Music Vendor, but since 1964 changed it to Record World, under the ownership of Sid Parnes and Bob Austin, both...

    's Instrumental Group of the Year
  • Cash Box's Record of the Year
  • Grammy Nomination
    Grammy Award
    A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

    , Best Instrumental Composition, "Birdland"
  • Grammy Nomination, Best Jazz Soloist, Jaco Pastorius, Heavy Weather
  • Grammy Award, Manhattan Transfer
    Manhattan Transfer
    Manhattan Transfer may refer to:* Manhattan Transfer , a Pennsylvania Railroad station in New Jersey* Manhattan Transfer , a 1925 novel by John Dos Passos* The Manhattan Transfer, a jazz, swing, R&B and pop group founded in 1969...

     version of "Birdland"
  • 1978 Mr. Gone
    Mr. Gone (album)
    Mr. Gone is Weather Report's eighth studio album, and is perhaps best known for receiving a "one-star" rating by Down Beat magazine.According to Down Beat magazine, "Zawinul, Shorter, et al. have made the controversial music a commercial product; unfortunately .....

  • 8th studio album
  • #1 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart (1978)
  • #52 on The Billboard 200 chart (1978)
  • Jazz Group of the Year at the 43rd Down Beat Readers Poll
  • 1979 8:30
    8:30
    8:30 is an album by the jazz fusion group Weather Report. It was recorded live except for tracks 10-13, which were studio recorded. Among other titles, it features a live version of the group's signature piece "Birdland". The album won a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Fusion Performance.-History:The...

  • Live album recorded in January–February 1979 during the 8:30 tour except for tracks 10-13, which were recorded in studio
  • #3 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart (1979)
  • #47 on The Billboard 200 chart (1979)
  • Jazz Group of the Year at the 44th Down Beat Readers Poll
  • Grammy Award for Best Jazz Fusion Performance
    Grammy Award for Best Jazz Fusion Performance
    The Grammy Award for Best Jazz Fusion Performance was an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for works containing quality jazz fusion performances...

     of 1979 (awarded in 1980)
  • 1980 Night Passage
    Night Passage (Weather Report album)
    -Personnel:*Josef Zawinul – Keyboards*Wayne Shorter – Saxophones*Jaco Pastorius – Bass*Peter Erskine – Drums*Robert Thomas Jr. – Hand drums...

  • Live album recorded on 12 and 13 July 1980 at The Complex in Los Angeles, California
  • #2 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart (1980)
  • #57 on The Billboard 200 chart (1980)
  • 1982 Weather Report
  • 9th studio album
  • #5 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart (1982)
  • #68 on The Billboard 200 chart (1982)
  • 1983 Procession
    Procession (album)
    Procession is the tenth studio album from Weather Report. It is the first album to feature the newest lineup of Weather Report. Victor Bailey replaced Jaco Pastorius as the bassist and Omar Hakim replaced Peter Erskine as the drummer. José Rossy was also added to the line up as percussionist...

  • 10th studio album
  • #3 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart (1983)
  • #46 on the Billboard Top R&B Albums chart (1983)
  • #96 on The Billboard 200 chart (1983)
  • 1984 Domino Theory
    Domino Theory (album)
    Domino Theory is the eleventh studio album by Weather Report. It is the second album to feature the Hakim-Bailey-Rossy rhythm section.-Track listing:All tracks composed by Joe Zawinul, except where indicated.#Can It Be Done – 4:02...

  • 11th studio album
  • #5 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart (1983)
  • #136 on The Billboard 200 chart (1983)
  • 1985 Sportin' Life
    Sportin' Life
    Sportin' Life is the twelfth studio album by Weather Report, released in 1985. Although featuring many more vocal performances than any of their previous albums, words are rare and most vocals are chants from Bobby McFerrin or Carl Anderson...

  • 12th studio album
  • #13 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart (1983)
  • #191 on The Billboard 200 chart (1983)
  • 1986 This Is This!
    This is This!
    This Is This! is the thirteenth and final studio album by Weather Report. The band thought that they had fulfilled their contract with Columbia Records with the release of the previous album Sportin' Life. This, however, was not the case and the band had to release one more record...

  • 13th and last studio album
  • #13 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart (1983)
  • #195 on The Billboard 200 chart (1983)
  • 2002 Live and Unreleased
    Live and Unreleased (album)
    Live and Unreleased is a compilation of live recordings of Weather Report. The tracks are taken from live performances that took place from November 25, 1975 to June 3, 1983...

  • Live recordings taken from November 25, 1975 to June 3, 1983
  • #21 on the Billboard Top Contemporary Jazz Albums chart (2002)
  • 2006 Forecast: Tomorrow
    Forecast: Tomorrow
    Forecast: Tomorrow is a 3-CD/1-DVD career-spanning compilation of recordings of Weather Report. The 37 tracks are presented chronologically, beginning with three tracks pre–Weather Report, from ensemble duties with Miles Davis , Cannonball Adderley , and from a Shorter solo album...

  • 3-CD + 1-DVD career-spanning box set
  • #18 on the Billboard Top Contemporary Jazz Albums chart (2006)

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