Best of

Weather Report - Best of

Best of
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Music CD Cover

Artist: Weather Report
Edition: Music CD
Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2002-06-04
Music Label: Sony
Soundtracks:
  1. Birdland
  2. Mysterious Traveller
  3. Boogie Woogie Waltz
  4. The Elders
  5. Night Passage
  6. Freezing Time
  7. A Remark You Made
  8. Elegant People
  9. Man In The Green Shirt
  10. Blackthorn Rose
  11. Black Market

Free Music Notes for Best of

Free Music Review: Excellent restrospective with a couple of key omissions
Hit: 5 Stars

The first thing that you need to know is that this disk sounds great. It's also a nice value as the disk is about 73 minutes long.

Also, this compilation contains nothing from the band's first two albums, nor does it contain the club crossover hit, "River People", one of my all-time favorite songs in any genre. Columbia knows that people want that song and it's only available on the following releases:

This Is Jazz, Vol. 40: The Jaco Years
Forecast: Tomorrow (included on the DVD)
Mr. Gone [Bonus Tracks]

When I was in high school, I had a couple of friends who were bonkers about Weather Report. I could never really get into them back then -- too oblique, moody and shape-shifting for me. Now, though, I get it. Why? Because I made an intentional effort to explore and understand jazz from Cole Porter to Duke Ellington to Ella, Miles, Coltrane and all the great Blue Note and Impulse stuff.

At first, Weather Report was still challenging, and I say that as someone who appreciates jazz. But give it several spins, free your mind, and understand that these compositions were often experimental and yes, moody and oblique. But life is that way, too, OK? Recognise that there's a vibe here, captured in the song "Mysterious Traveller", of exploration. Let go of your preconceived ideas of where song forms are supposed to go, and let the musicians instead chart their own course through everything from funk to show tunes to dance to smoldering spirituality.

The liner notes contain a great question. "What do they sound like? What kind of music do they play?" And the answer is, there is no other band that sounds like Weather Report except Weather Report. These compositions stand alongside the work of Monk, Brubeck/Desmond, Ellington, Horace Silver, and Miles. The purists have always had an axe to grind because they dared to incorporate electronics and song forms from Tin Pan Alley, the American Songbook, Show Tunes, World Music and even pure Funk. You can even hear some spaced-out, Grateful Dead-style spacey/trippy interludes at times. But at every moment, you know that what you are hearing is an accomplished and jazz band that respected the listener and always took it to "a whole 'nother level."

The standout for me is the 13-minute opus "Boogie Woogie Waltz" (which you'll notice after a couple of listenings really is a waltz done up in polyrythms) with a free-floating melody, or series of melodies that suggests a very gritty, urban stretscape. The tune gets really spacey as it builds to a wild funky break, at which time it morphs into an unmistakable pounding heartbeat that absolutely explodes out of your speakers over a hot percolating bed of percussion-laced wah-wah guitar and improvised electric piano runs and hot horn blasts that drive home a final melodic theme that you didn't even realise had been building the entire time.

This is improvisational groove music with highly original melodies, by a band that was never afraid to challenge the definition of jazz by the musty critics' club that oversaw the genre at the time. In the words of a song by Herbie Hancock, "Hang up Your Hang Ups" and order this. It doesn't sieze you by the throat as much as it dances its way into your consciousness. Funky, heartfelt and a lot of fun.
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Best of Poster

There were so many versions of the band that Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter called home that this compilation probably should have been called The Best of Weather Reports. And considering its neglect of the group's first two albums, Weather Report (1971) and I Sing the Body Electric (1972), which contain some of the group's finest work, the subtitle "1973-1980" should have been added to this release. But if the collection, which contains no previously unreleased material, lacks breadth and unity, it does provide an enjoyable road map through this legendary fusion band's history, as they added newfangled instruments and ethnic influences and swapped musicians. Leading off with the infectious, hugely popular "Birdland," the album includes many of its better-known tunes, including the title tracks to Mysterious Traveller and Black Market and "Boogie Woogie Waltz" from the underrated Sweetnighter. It's a nice set to have, but hardly essential. --Lloyd Sachs

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