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I admit, I only bought this cd because it was the only Weather Report album that I did not own. That being said this is a must have for any fan that hasn't discovered this early gem!
During the 1970's Columbia jazz artists Herbie Hancock [FLOOD], Miles Davis [BLACK BEAUTY, DARK MAGUS, PANGAEA], and Weather Report [LIVE IN TOKYO] all recorded two-record Japanese SONY albums of live concerts that were available in the U. S. only as imports. These items were eagerly sought by collectors on this side of the ocean--myself included--in those days. Edited portions of the live Weather Report TOKYO material were released as side two of the second domestic Weather Report release: I SING THE BODY ELECTRIC. That's the album with the eerie transparent man science fiction picture on the front. In keeping with that mysterious theme, I was admittedly a bit puzzled by the record itself. I didn't discover I SING THE . . . until after Weather Report had been around for a few years, by which time bassist Jaco Pastorius had joined the band and writers used terms like "jazz-rock" to describe them. Yet, that term certainly did not describe what my ears heard on I SING THE . . . . Side one of that record utilized, in addition to the regular Weather Report quintet lineup, singers, an English horn, a flute, and twelve-string guitarist Ralph Towner, better known to me as a member of the acoustic group Oregon. Side two of that record came from the Tokyo concert that was released, in its entirety, on LIVE IN TOKYO. Simply put, side two of I SING THE . . . is the Readers' Digest version; LIVE IN TOKYO is the complete book. The band here includes Josef Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, Miroslav Vitous, Eric Gravatt, and Dom Um Romao. Zawinul had not yet begun to use any synthesizers in live performance. Thus, in addition to his acoustic piano playing, he was still trying to see how large a sonic arsenal he could coax out of the Fender Rhodes electric piano. Vitous plays both electric and acoustic basses here, especially getting some interesting electronically-enhanced bowed sounds from his acoustic. Romao is an adventuresome Latin American percussionist; I can imagine that he was as much fun to watch as to hear. Gravatt is a musician considered by many listeners never to have received the recognition that his considerable talents deserved. Gravatt would be the first member of this quintet to leave the group, and at one point in his career he seemed to have dropped out of view. One complaint frequently made concerning later Weather Report recordings would be that Shorter was being underutilized as a soprano and tenor sax soloist. That complaint does not apply here. Three of the original four lp sides found on these two cd's contain continuous medleys in which Zawainul's musical cues are signposts indicating to the band that it was time to move on to the next tune. By his own admission, Zawinul decided that this loosely improvisational style wasn't selling enough records to please him. He explains, "One night we played like the best musicians in the world and the other night we couldn't get off the ground. Many nights it was incredible, but if the magic wasn't on it was a catastrophe." To my ears, this band's magic was definitely on during this January 1972 performance. Zawinul and Shorter would prove to be the only two constants as the band continued through the years. Even if later, funkier versions of the band are more to your liking, this grouping represents an undeniable peak in terms of spontaneous creativity. If that's the way you like your music, this is five-star material.Read full review
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