Heavy Weather (album)

Updated on Jan 02, 2024

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Released March 1977 Length 37:39 Heavy Weather (1977) Mr. Gone (1978) Release date March 1977 Awards Grammy Hall of Fame		Recorded Late 1976 – Early 1977 Label Columbia Artist Weather Report Genre Jazz fusion

Studio Devonshire Sound Studios, North Hollywood, California Producers Joe Zawinul, Jaco Pastorius, Wayne Shorter Similar Weather Report albums, Jazz fusion albums

Weather report heavy weather complete album

Heavy Weather is the eighth album by Weather Report, released in 1977 through Columbia Records. The release originally sold about 500,000 copies; it would prove to be the band's most commercially successful album. Heavy Weather received a 5-star review from Down Beat magazine and went on to be voted jazz album of the year by the readers of that publication.

Featuring the jazz standard "Birdland", the album is one of the best-sellers in the Columbia jazz catalog. This opening track was a significant commercial success, something not typical of instrumental music. The melody had been performed live by the band as part of "Dr Honoris Causa", which was from Joe Zawinul's eponymous solo album.

Although not mentioned as a live recording in the liner notes, "Rumba Mamá" (a percussion and vocals feature for Manolo Badrena and Alex Acuña) was recorded at the band's concert in Montreux in summer 1976, of which a film would be released on DVD in 2007.

Weather report heavy weather album

Critical reception

Dan Oppenheimer in a June 1977 review for Rolling Stone felt the band had moved from their earlier music, losing a lot of the space, melodies and airy feel that marked them out from other jazz rock bands, but gaining a new bassist who "has been instrumental in developing their busier, talkative style", and that while their music previously "went up and up only; becoming more ethereal as it went; the new bottom makes all the difference in the world".

Legacy

Richard Ginell commented in a retrospective review for Allmusic that it was released "just as the jazz-rock movement began to run out of steam", however he felt that "this landmark album proved that there was plenty of creative life left in the idiom."

In February 2011, Heavy Weather was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame.

The album was included in Robert Dimery's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Weather Report

Joe Zawinul – ARP 2600 on all tracks except "Rumba Mamá", Rhodes electric piano on all tracks except "Birdland", "Rumba Mamá" and "Havona", Yamaha grand piano on "Birdland", "Harlequin", "The Juggler" and "Havona", Oberheim polyphonic synthesizer on all tracks except "Rumba Mamá", "Palladíum" and "The Juggler", vocal on "Birdland", melodica on "Birdland" and "Teen Town", and guitar and tabla on "The Juggler".

Wayne Shorter – Soprano saxophone on all tracks except "A Remark You Made" and "Rumba Mamá", and tenor saxophone on "Birdland"", "A Remark You Made" and "Palladíum"

Jaco Pastorius – Fretless on all tracks except "Rumba Mamá", mandocello on "Birdland" and "The Juggler", vocals on "Birdland", drums on "Teen Town", steel drums on "Palladíum"

Alex Acuña – Drum set on all tracks except "Teen Town" and "Rumba Mamá", congas and tom-toms on "Rumba Mamá", and handclaps on "The Juggler"

Manolo Badrena – Tambourine on "Birdland", congas on "Teen Town", "Rumba Mamá" and "Palladíum", vocal on "Harlequin" and "Rumba Mamá", timbales on "Rumba Mamá", and percussion on "Palladíum" and "The Juggler"

Production

Joe Zawinul – Producer and orchestrator

Jaco Pastorius – Co-producer

Wayne Shorter – Assistant producer

Ron Malo – Engineer

Jerry Hudgins – Assistant engineer

Brian Risner – Assistant engineer and chief meteorologist

Nancy Donald – Design

Lou Beach – Illustration

Keith Williamson – Photography

Release history

The album was first released in LP format worldwide throughout Columbia Records, CBS Records, Sony Records, and other minor record labels. In 1984, it was first released in CD format in the U.S. on Columbia Records. In 1992, the album was remastered, and, in 2002, published in Super Audio CD format.

See the table below for a more comprehensive list of the album releases.

Songs

1Birdland5:59
2A Remark You Made6:56
3Teen Town2:52

References

Heavy Weather (album) Wikipedia

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