THE LEGENDARY LIVE TAPES: 1978-1981
by WEATHER REPORT

The live magic is finally captured!

By Rick Hines, Jan. 23, 2016

One evening when I was in college, I happened to be passing the music hall, and I heard a great musical noise coming from within. This was before I knew who Weather Report was, or even what jazz was. I stopped on the sidewalk for several minutes, marveling at sounds I had never encountered before, and musicians playing with a fiery intensity that put most of the rock bands I listened to at the time to shame. I made a note to find out who was playing that night, and look into them. Turns out I had missed my opportunity to see the Heavy Weather tour.

When the 8:30 album came out, I rushed home to find that the recording, while powerful in its own way, didn't capture that feeling of a band lifting off and approaching escape velocity. By the time of Live and Unreleased, I was firmly convinced that Weather Report was one of those groups whose live shows never quite seemed to be conveyed by the recorded document.

I'm here to say that The Legendary Live Tapes finally corrects that. These performances simply explode out of the speakers. These four guys were clearly surfing a creative wave. The playing is fierce, with Shorter showing a harder side to his playing than he does on his studio work while never letting his more subtle moments get soft. While Jaco's two solo spots appear, in hindsight, to be a bit gimmicky, his work within the group is stunningly original. He plays with a drive and fluidity that are his hallmarks. In the pre-MIDI age, Zawinul puts on a keyboard display of superhuman multi-hand virtuosity. True to their manifesto, they all appear to blur the lines between soloing and ensemble interplay, deftly leaning one way, then the other. Under it all, drummer Peter Erskine (with occasional help from a percussionist) plays with a power and multi-rhythmic dexterity that mirrors the go-for-it-all approach of the other players.

These performances are live and unedited, so there are a few rough spots, but that only reinforces the fact the musicians were pushing each other to their limits. My only complaint might be: did we really need two drum solos (one of which is a studio recording)? Oh well, Erskine produced the set primarily from his own tape collection, so if that's what it takes to get him to release this stuff, more power to him.

While there are some classic WR studio albums (Mysterious Traveller, Heavy Weather, etc.), there is nothing like hearing a talented jazz band letting loose live on stage in front of an enthusiastic audience. If you want to hear what all the Jaco-era excitement was really about, you might find this 4-disc set a bit too short. Overall, the best jazz album I've heard in years by a mile.