Sweetnighter - Weather Report

Jan

19

Sweetnighter - Weather Report

≡ Category: 1970s, Avant-Guarde, Essential, Free Jazz, Fusion, Jazz Funk, Reviews, World Fusion |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING

Rating:

Around the time Sweetnighter came out on the Columbia label, Joe Zawinul was frustrated. He had initially put together Weather Report as a unique combination of free jazz and through composed tunes, in which it was difficult to tell where one began and the other ended. When it worked, it was breathtaking. The problem was, Weather Report had off nights when nothing worked. The concept required inspiration and perfect execution.

Also, Joe had a thing for third world grooves. He decided that he wanted to anchor Weather Report in rhythm and have freedom within the groove, in order to remove a variable and make live performance more manageable and predictable.

Not surprisingly, Sweetnighter (released on the Columbia label) is a transitional album, focusing mostly on groove and sound, but retaining some vestiges of free jazz and post bop.

The opener, Boogie Woogie Waltz, is an exemplar of the new style. It’s a heavy 3/4 groove over one chord that lasts over 13 minutes, with no discernable melody, unless you count the repetitive chant that closes the tune. Drummer Eric Gravatt and percussionists Dom Um Romao and Muruga predominate. The other thing that’s immediately noticeable is the beautiful range of sounds that Zawinul manages on his primitive keyboards. He uses a wah wah pedal beautifully. Wayne Shorter is gutsy on tenor, but he’s mostly playing fills and accents. Andrew White on bass mostly serves the same function. Frankly, there isn’t much to the tune, but it’s beautiful to listen to.

Manolete, written by Wayne Shorter, is another story. Underlying the tune is a full tilt groove. But the tune itself features a through composed rubato melody, played by Wayne Shorter’s keening tenor. The contrast between the two is almost unbearably tense. The band here is incredible. Miroslav Vitous on bass makes all sorts of completely counter-intuitive note choices on bass, which fit only in retrospect, and serve to increase the tension even more. Zawinul’s keyboard accompaniment is gorgeous, whether he’s contributing crystalline acoustic piano arpeggios in the upper register or convoluted synthesizer Escher sketches that begin and end nowhere. Halfway through the tune, the percussion becomes even more insistent, and Miroslav introduces a bass ostinato. Shorter repeats the melody, this time interpolating improvisations at opportune moments. All of this leads inexorably to an ecstatic cry by Shorter that echoes Miroslav’s bass ostinato. An amazing tune.

Adios is a tone poem by Zawinul that could have appeared on Weather Report’s first album, alongside Orange Lady.

We’re back again to one-chord grooves on 125th Street Congress. This time, Shorter has a little more fun, letting loose an a number of inspired riffs. I enjoyed his tone, too, which has been fed through some kind of electronics that give it an agreeable edge. Zawinul sprinkles electric piano pixie dust around. It’s one of those tunes that you zone out to, just reveling in the atmosphere and groove.

Will, by Miroslav Vitous, is fairly inconsequential, the weakest tune in the set. It’s another rubato melody over a one chord groove, this time doubled by Miroslav’s bass and Shorter’s tenor. Zawinul is content to outline a chord behind them. Miroslav doodles around the melody. It’s pleasant enough, and that’s about it.

Non-Stop Home, Miroslav’s other contribution to the album, is much stronger. It starts out with yet another driving, insistent groove, with Zawinul working up some atmospherics via what sounds like a ring modulator. Then Miroslav kicks in with a funk bass groove. It sounds for a minute or so like we’re in for a straight-up groove tune, but no — Non-Stop Home is another exercise in tension, with a rubato melody played over frenetic drumming and percussion. The strategy that worked so brilliantly on Manolete isn’t as successful here. The conflation of the gospel tinged rubato theme and the frantic percussion seems almost willfully perverse. But then again, I kind of like perversity.

Sweetnighter ends up being a collision of two styles, between what Weather Report had been and what it would be in the future. Zawinul hadn’t yet figured out how to make it all work, so Sweetnighter is a like a peek at the creative process. But that’s far from being it’s sole value. To me, Sweetnighter is beautiful in it’s own right: awkward, passionate, and fearless.