JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
Rating: 
Heavy Weather holds the distinction of being Weather Report’s best selling album, spawning the crossover hit Birdland and the bass geek anthem Teen Town.
It is also the album on which Jaco Pastorius became an equal compositional and melodic voice along with Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter. Jaco’s bass pyrotechnics are justly heralded on the aforementioned Teen Town and the less well known should-have-been-a-standard Havona, but also check out how beautifully he handles the melody in Zawinul’s gorgeous ballad A Remark You Made.
Zawinul, for his part, handles the keyboards expertly and with restraint (unlike the overkill of Mr. Gone the following year). Listen to the faux steel pans on Wayne Shorter’s joyful Paladium or Zawinul’s knockout solo on Havona for evidence.
And although Shorter doesn’t get as much solo space as one might like, he imbues every note with grace and soul, and is every bit as much necessary to the success of Heavy Weather as Zawinul and Jaco.
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