Weather Reportwere one of the best and most interesting Jazz/Rock/World/Prog fusion bands ever. They were also surprisingly commercially successful for a band that played such challenging music. Maybe it was the way Jaco Pastorius rocked the bass in his tenure in the band or maybe it was the brilliance of co-leaders Wayne Shorter and the late Josef Zawinul. I saw WR quite a few times and one of the minor triumphs of my life was when I got the stolid Zawinul to play a snippet of Louie Louie on his piano between numbahs. He declined, however, to play Whipping Post. Woe is me, bop.
Heavy Weather was an excellent LP featuring Birdland, which some NOLA bands play whilst parading during Carnival. The art was one of many LP covers done by Lou Beach whose work is apt to play a return engagement here at First Draft:
Here’s Weather Report rocking Birdland live. Crank it up, y’all:
