Forecast:Tommorrow includes many highlights of the band's successful 15 year runBy Chris Cooke
Omaha, Nebraska – Comprised of three discs of music, plus a DVD of a late 1970's concert of the band in its prime, the Weather Report box set Forecast: Tomorrow is a welcome addition to any progressive jazz fan's library.
Weather Report co-founders, keyboard wizard Joe Zawinul and reedman Wayne Shorter launched the group in 1971. Previously they were involved in Miles Davis' In a Silent Way/Bitches Brew recording sessions that launched fusion jazz. Weather Report band personnel often changed, and the box set documents several different editions of the band led by Zawinul and Shorter. Weather Report's acquisition of legendary bassist and composer Jaco Pastorius took the music to new heights in the late 1970s.
The group maintained a delicate balance between improvisation and structure, electric and acoustic textures, and melodic and atmospheric compositions. Weather Report enjoyed extraordinary critical and commercial success for 15 years until it disbanded in the mid 1980's.
The box set starts with recordings made before the founding of Weather Report by Shorter and Zawinul with the Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley bands.
Immediately following are the earliest recordings of the jazz supergroup, as well as a previously unreleased live track of the band performing one of its signature pieces, Mysterious Traveler, from 1974. Many selections of the band in its prime with the legendary bassist Jaco Pastorius are also on the set, in addition to tracks from the group's final lineup before it disbanded in 1985.
Selections from Weather Report's Forecast:Tomorrow will be broadcast throughout the month of November, with a set of tunes from the box set to air on the 25th of November on the Last Call.
Chris Cooke is the host of Last Call on KIOS-FM.