Heavy Weather

I always feel bad for people that can’t listen to instrumental music/albums because they’re “boring”. This FUCKS

yeah...

Has it's moments, and they are talented, but also turns into background music.

This is technically competent, but it felt a bit hollow.

Weather Report is a band I’ve generally steered clear of over the years. I'd loosely file their sound under modern jazz—a genre I've never quite clicked with.

Still, I figured it was time to give Heavy Weather a fair shot. Most of the jazz I've explored so far for this challenge has been from the late ’50s, and truth be told, it hasn’t really resonated with me. So how does ’70s jazz stack up in comparison? Let’s find out.

The opening track, “Birdland,” was an enjoyable listen—upbeat, polished, and packed with vibrant wind instrumentation. I found myself liking it, along with a couple of other tracks. That said, the album as a whole strikes me as a rather bland attempt at modernizing jazz. Technically impressive, yes—but emotionally, it left me cold.

Favourite track: “Rumba Mama” stood out as a fun, energetic detour from the rest of the album. It’s very short, but memorable. “Birdland” was also a highlight.
Least favourite track: “Palladium” is the kind of jazz that really puts me off—disjointed and hard to engage with.
Album artwork: I genuinely love the cover. It’s bold, vivid, and perfectly captures the experimental vibe of the music within.

Birdland really sounds like the soundtrack to something, like a 90s sitcom or something. Rumba Mama came out of fucking nowhere, hahaha. Turns out that Birdland was a cover of the original version by Maynard Ferguson.

far from groundbreaking as far as jazz goes, but it’s an enjoyable listen

Het TV-prorgamma voor 1990:
- 1:00 . "Birdland" Een spelprogramma
- 2.00 "A Remark You Made" aftiteling van een soap
- 3.00 "Teen Town" De nachtprogrammering
- 4.00 "Harlequin" testbeeld
- 5.00 "Rumba Mamá" hervatting uitzending
- 6.00 "Palladíum" een kinderprogramma
- 7.00 "The Juggler" een uitzending van de gezamelijke kerken
- 8.00 "Havona" een kinderthriller

Jazzy sound of that particular era, probably fueled a thousand late 70s/early 80s dinner parties where people schmoozed, did cocaine, shared partners, and laughed about new fangled things like how do they set the clock on the VCR?

Das Album wird Jazz-Fusion betrachtet, es war jedoch kein Musikgenuss. Auch die Experimentierfreude der Band half es nicht einen emotionaler Zugang zur Musik zu schaffen. Tracks wie „Birdland“, wirkten auf kalt und mechanisch. Insgesamt konnte das Album weder mit seiner Atmosphäre noch mit seiner Komposition punkten.

Jazz Fusion is always a good choice. This feels a tiny bit dated and you can tell it's from the 70s but it's still really good.

When jazz goes bad.

Sounds too much like the incidental music of terrible family films from the 1980s. I'm sure I heard that saxophone in Three Men and a Baby.

Background music

Really straddles the line between competent fusion and cheesy cliche Jazz. It has a lot of moments of brilliant playing, especially Jaco Pastorius his bass playing shines here. However, there's a few moments where it sounds a bit cheesy, perhaps because of its influence. I found this to have a lot of variety as well. Rumba Mama sounds very different from the phenomenal Birdland sounds different from the other songs on here.

Perhaps I treated you too harshly, Weather Report. I originally listened to this while building LEGO a couple years ago, and I found it cheesy and boring, but perhaps it's that Black Midi jazz (the band, not the genre) but some of these songs kind of struck a chord with me this time around. The early stuff flew by and was nothing to write home about, but the later into the album we got the more I could appreciate it for what it is. Is it all that special? Nah, it's still dated and cliché, but I don't dislike this as much as I was lead to believe.

Pretty decent opening track which the rest of the album never quite catches back up to.

When the bass starts grooving, like in Teen Town or Palladium, I'm on board with this fusion album.

But A Remark You Made has put me over my allergy borders and had to skip it every time I hear this album.

Mad respect for their musical skills (particularly Jaco!), but jazz fusion never quite pulls me in. There was a bit of nostalgia for me here, because I played Birdland in my HS jazz band, but aside from that there's not much that makes me want to dig in further. Teen Town and Havona were particularly impressive and caught my attention. I can appreciate why it's on the 1001, but moving on now...

bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad

Too Jazzy