This is the Weather Report equivalent of the 'main sequence' of Yes albums from 71-77, in terms of both awesomeness and importance.
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Ambient/Post-Rock/Textural bass playing thread
- Thread starter ttasselm
- Start date
This is the Weather Report equivalent of the 'main sequence' of Yes albums from 71-77, in terms of both awesomeness and importance.
The Miroslav stuff has a lot more of a free Bitches Brew kind of vibe to it. I think they got funkier when Miroslav left, I remember reading Zawinul saying something about how Miroslav couldn't really funk it up, he was much more of a classic jazzer.
imo, wr started as a sort of open composed/free-jazzish thing, went into more groove and “third world” territory, and ended up being in a pretty highly produced rock band territory.
Was watching an old vid of WR with Miroslav last night. They got into one of their early groove tunes, and Miroslav just couldn't hang. On everything else he was miraculous.
I know I just made a dig at the billion-notes fusion, but anyone heard McLaughlin's One Truth Band, from 77? Fernando Saunders on bass, playing some killer fretless... kind of like a much more funkier version of Mahavishnu. I've played this album to death. One of my favorite tracks:
Speaking of Miroslav, Now He Sings, Now He Sobs is still one of my favorite recordings. I had a class that Jamie Haddad taught at Berklee. He told us a story about him rooming with Chick during that time. He asked Chick how the recording went when he came back from doing it. He just casually said it went well, like it was any old day of playing. What a masterpiece. Miroslav with Roy Haynes is a revelation on that record.
missed the hydrasynth chatter, just wanted to throw in...
I can't get past a saw wave with the arpeggiator and filter 1....just TOOO much fun and the sounds are so lush. It's such a great design for a live player...so easy to tweak things on the spot. So easy to learn a few things and sound like you've been playing synths for years. It truly is a machine that doesn't get in the way of your creativity, but rather quickly enables you to explore your creativity and not be limited by what you know and don't know how to do.
I can't get past a saw wave with the arpeggiator and filter 1....just TOOO much fun and the sounds are so lush. It's such a great design for a live player...so easy to tweak things on the spot. So easy to learn a few things and sound like you've been playing synths for years. It truly is a machine that doesn't get in the way of your creativity, but rather quickly enables you to explore your creativity and not be limited by what you know and don't know how to do.
re: Weather Report ...looks like I'm on the same page as most of y'all. Definitely agree that they were at their best when the music sounded like a collaboration with equal input from everyone; as soon as any one individual's voice became too strong, they lose interest for me (or my hackles get raised and I question their decisions).
- Enjoy the stuff they did with Miroslav, mostly because it reminds me of "Free Jazz" but with a bit more of an ethnic/chill vibe.
- Love the stuff they did with Alphonso. Their high point imho
- Jaco's first two appearances (Black Market and Heavy Weather) are enjoyable, and I definitely recognize their importance as cultural milestones both for jazz and for electric bass. But holy crap did they go downhill from there. Everything they did with Jaco & Peter Erskine makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit.
- the stuff they did with Victor Bailey just sounds like prep work for a Zawinul Syndicate album.
I saw the One Truth Band live from the front row of the Berklee Performance Center in '78 or '79. Like watching a nuclear reactor meltdown; just incredible energy coming off the stage from that ensemble. But I don't enjoy that album nearly as much as the Johnny McLaughlin, Electric Guitarist album that preceded it in JM's discography; that is one of my desert island discs. Stellar performances all around, with a revolving cast of musicians that includes bassists Fernando Saunders, Neil Jason, Alphonso Johnson, Stanley Clarke, and Jack Bruce.
- Enjoy the stuff they did with Miroslav, mostly because it reminds me of "Free Jazz" but with a bit more of an ethnic/chill vibe.
- Love the stuff they did with Alphonso. Their high point imho
- Jaco's first two appearances (Black Market and Heavy Weather) are enjoyable, and I definitely recognize their importance as cultural milestones both for jazz and for electric bass. But holy crap did they go downhill from there. Everything they did with Jaco & Peter Erskine makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit.
- the stuff they did with Victor Bailey just sounds like prep work for a Zawinul Syndicate album.
I saw the One Truth Band live from the front row of the Berklee Performance Center in '78 or '79. Like watching a nuclear reactor meltdown; just incredible energy coming off the stage from that ensemble. But I don't enjoy that album nearly as much as the Johnny McLaughlin, Electric Guitarist album that preceded it in JM's discography; that is one of my desert island discs. Stellar performances all around, with a revolving cast of musicians that includes bassists Fernando Saunders, Neil Jason, Alphonso Johnson, Stanley Clarke, and Jack Bruce.
Re: weather report and 70's stuff.
I listened to way more of Herbie Hancock mawandishi band and the first two with the headhunters albums than any WR.
Sextant is an absolute masterpiece.
My 2 cents
I listened to way more of Herbie Hancock mawandishi band and the first two with the headhunters albums than any WR.
Sextant is an absolute masterpiece.
My 2 cents
yeah, i'd been playing fretless since 1972 (cause i read that alphonso was getting one and had remembered rick danko), so the jaco thing was both big and had too much gravity. needed to find my own orbit, so to speak. and really, ugh, i can't listen to him except on hejira and don juan's reckless daughter (and even then it makes me antsy).
i think one of problems for both weather report and steely dan is that they spawned so many people copping their stuff in the smooth jazz/new age genre. i think it's almost impossible to hear their music now and not hear the connections to what came after . . . and all the fretless with chorus, omfg.
yeah. i agree with a lot of that.
but having seen the mahavishnu orchestra v1 something like seven times, i can tell you that the time sig/amount of notes were not the primary hook for me. the *sheer intensity* of that band live can't really be explained (the live album is *not* a good representation, imo). when they were on, there was nothing like them (i saw their last gig in l.a. and they were *terrible*, but they all hated each other at that point).
rtf is somewhat different, i saw them both with connors and dimeola. the connors stuff is much looser and musical for me (and stanley's bass sound!). stanley and lenny white are a great pairing. i saw them numerous times—16-year-old bass player infatuated with stanley.
it's a pretty amazing document. i heard that it's either the first or second gig acuña did with them (and that he went from a vegas lounge gig to that as well!).
haha. yeah, i've been editing virtual training docs for people using zoom.
maybe that's the thread.
thanks for listening to it.
(by the way, a lot of boss 500 series stuff on the 12-string action)
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tb's stupid emoji menu doesn't have hearts.
imagine a whole string of hearts here . . . imagine a whole string of hearts here . . . imagine a whole string of hearts here . . . imagine a whole string of hearts here . . .
oh hell yes. and buster william's **sound**
paul jackson is criminally underrated.
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i don't know if i saw that band, did it have tm stevens and sonship? if so, i saw them in chicago. good band, but not mo.
but what you describe as the nuclear reactor feels about right.
the first time i saw mo, i swear it changed me on an elemental level.
I know of the band you describe, but that was not the "official" One Truth Band. I forget the timeline; the TMS/Sonship version either came just before or just after the version that recorded the album and toured. Official One Truth Band lineup was Fernando Saunders on bass, Tony Smith on drums, Alyrio Lima on percussion, L.Shankar on violin, and Stu Goldberg on keys (plus McLaughlin).
A dear friend of mine saw the TMS/Sonship version and had a similar experience as yours.
All those Herbie records where played on loop for a looooong time in my headphones. The textures colors mood whatever are so perfect. Words are gonna fall short.
Buster is the shizzle.
As for Paul Jackson. Imo he's one of the baddest mofos to ever touch the instrument......period.
NO-ONE can improvise groove lines like he does.
I literally stopped playing a few days when I heard THRUST.
I was floored....mind exploded.
With all those harts we might have a bromance thing over here.
It's funny, I buried myself in Headhunters and Thrust so deeply that it took me a couple decades to dig myself out of that hole, look around, and wonder "huh, I wonder what Herbie's band just before this was doing?" Seriously, I got turned on to those first Herbie+Paul Jackson et al albums my freshman year in college -- 1978 -- and didn't even listen to Sextant until 2004!
I've since made up for lost time, and those MWandishi-era albums are now some of the favorites in my entire collection.
I've since made up for lost time, and those MWandishi-era albums are now some of the favorites in my entire collection.
Mwandishi imo is one of the most uderated bands in jazz history.
Everything they released is pure effin classic.
Soooooo gooooooood.
