WEATHER REPORT – BLACK MARKET LP – EXC+ UK  JAZZ JOE ZAWINUL

Weather Report – Black Market
(CBS Records  1983 32226)
Matrix No’s: A4/B3 – UK Pressing

Sleeve in Excellent condition
– some wear to edges/corners

Vinyl in Excellent+ condition
(there are some surface marks visible on the vinyl when held up to the light but they don’t affect the sound quality apart from some light pops/crackles)

Weather Report was an American jazz fusion band of the 1970s and early 1980s. The band was initially co-led by the Austrian-born keyboard player Joe Zawinul, the American saxophonist Wayne Shorter and Czech bassist Miroslav Vitouš. Due to creative and financial disagreements, Vitouš left the band after a few years. Zawinul took increasing control and steered the band towards a more funk, R&B oriented sound. Other prominent members at various points in the band’s lifespan included bassists Alphonso Johnson, Jaco Pastorius and Victor Bailey; and drummers/percussionists Peter Erskine, Alex Acuña, Airto Moreira, and Chester Thompson.

Alongside Miles Davis’s electric bands, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever, and Headhunters, Weather Report is considered to be one of the pre-eminent early jazz fusion bands. As a continuous working unit, Weather Report outlasted all of its contemporaries despite (or perhaps because of) frequent changes of personnel, with a career lasting sixteen years between 1970 and 1986. However, the band was nearly always a quintet of keyboards, sax, bass, drums, and percussion.

Black Market is an instrumental jazz fusion album released by Weather Report in 1976. This album was produced by Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter. It was recorded in December 1975 and released in April 1976 through Columbia Records.

This is Weather Report’s seventh overall album and the first with the bass player Jaco Pastorius who features on two tracks. The album draws heavily from African influences and its style could be described as “world fusion”. The second song, “Cannon Ball” is tribute to Zawinul’s then recently deceased former band leader, saxophonist Julian “Cannonball” Adderley.

Track listing

Side A

1. “Black Market” (J. Zawinul) – 6:28
2. “Cannon Ball” (J. Zawinul) – 4:36
3. “Gibraltar” (J. Zawinul) – 8:16

Side B

1. “Elegant People” (W. Shorter) – 5:03
2. “Three Clowns” (W. Shorter) – 3:31
3. “Barbary Coast” (J. Pastorius) – 3:19
4. “Herandnu” (A. Johnson) – 6:36

Personnel

• Joe Zawinul — Yamaha Grand Piano, Rhodes Electric Piano, Arp 2600 Synthesizer, Oberheim Polyphonic Synthesizer, Production, Orchestration
• Wayne Shorter — Selmer soprano and tenor saxophones, Computone Lyricon, Co-Production

First set of sessions: A3 – B1 – B2 – B4

• Electric bass — Alphonso Johnson
• Drums — Chester Thompson
• Percussion, Congas — Alex Acuña

Second set of sessions: A1 – A2 – B3

• Electric bass — Jaco Pastorius
• Drums A1/A2 — Narada Michael Walden
• Drums B3 — Chester Thompson
• Percussion, Congas A1/B3 — Don Alias
• Percussion, Congas A2 — Alex Acuña