This excellent 1977 release opens with the highly popular Birdland, a synthesizer-heavy piece that introduces the awesome talents of the greatest bassist in the world, Jaco Pastorius. As a bass player myself that was heavily influenced by Jaco, I was floored by his incredible technique on this recording, which includes a heady brew of harmonics, false harmonics, chords, and occasional bursts of lightning fast 64th note triplets. This is not to say that Jaco could not lay back - the moody and haunting Zawinul composition A Remark You Made features some very tasteful and restrained playing. The Wayne Shorter tune Harlequin and Zawinul's The Juggler are also very nice and similar in texture to A Remark You Made. The truly odd track is the the percussion driven piece Rumba Mama, which features a live performance by a duo comprised of excellent drummer Alex Acuna and percussionist Manola Badrena, who also "sing-shouts" in Spanish at the beginning of the piece. Although I really enjoy the entire disc, for me the highlights of Heavy Weather include Birdland, A Remark You Made, the Jaco tunes Teen Town and Havona, along with Wayne Shorter's superb Palladium. Although Joe Zawinul's use of synthesizers is heavy (a lot of Oberheim Polyphonic and ARP 2600) the sounds are natural and blend well with the jazzier and "straighter" aspects of the music. Then again, I am a huge prog rock fan so the synthesizers probably would not bother me much. If you like this recording, Black Market (1976) is also superb and in addition to Zawinul and Shorter, features a large and revolving rhythm section including: Narada Michael Walden (drums), Chester Thompson (drums), Jaco (bass), and Alphonse Mouzon (bass).

Blessed be. The oldest band member is fifty-three years older than the youngest member. Some are Black, some are White, one is Asian. All are extraordinarily talented musicians and artists. This charge into ubiquity is touch-starred by the gift known as "Birdland". A composition omni-present that unfolds like a teaching of the history of man. Everything is there. Tom-toms and Stratocasters, smoke signals and keyboards, snare drums and calliope. I speak not for collections, but for music itself. Give it a chance; you'll be floored.

Back in the late 70's, I just started to venture out and expand my musical tastes from just rock and bought my first jazz records; George Benson's "Breezin'", Stanley Clarkes' "School Days", and by sheer luck due to hearing that particular day the vast, unified wall of beautiful developing sound with the electronic keyboards of Joe Zawinul and the funkified, dancing bass of the masterful Jaco Pastorius both leading in a full, somewhat Big Band style, the now classic jazz perennial standard, "Birdland" (as well as this impressionable teenager checking out the cool album cover) of this landmark album, "Heavy Weather".
Not a bad start to enjoy the beauty of Jazz with these three album gems for initiation !!!

"Heavy Weather" expanded my listening pleasures in further understanding and appreciating craft and artistic musicianship as it further defined Weather Report as a "supergroup" in an at-the-time stale jazz-rock movement suddenly being revamped with the help and popularity of this now classic.

Lead by an ultra-talented trio of co-founder Zawinal, Pastorius - who brought a new breath of fresh air in bringing a moving, funky, staccato bass and creating another melodic voice, and the sizzling saxophonist, Wayne Shorter, "Heavy Weather" contains remarkable and timeless songs like the ingenious classics "A Remark You Made", "Teen Town", "Harlequin", "Palladium", "The Juggler" and the spectacular ending workout "Havona". This band creates by no means mainstream, commercial jazz but an extremely clever, interesting, sometimes complex fusion textured yet smooth, dreamy approachable jazz sophisication for the listener to really sit back, close their eyes and truely appreciate the beauty of the musicianship of what they are hearing.

This album is an absolute must for all who appreciate rock and jazz !!!

...and want people to take the stairs, this is the album to put on the onboard speakers.

If you are looking for good jazz, or good fusion, look elsewhere. People have called this album funky. It is about as funky as Kenny G. This is jazz lite and intolerable to listen to - very similar in feel to Tom Scott's "Theme from Starsky and Hutch". Yummy!

Weather Report's "Mysterious Traveller" is much more exciting and funky. Return to Forever and Mahavishnu Orchestra had both quit playing by this point in history - because they would have been embarrassed to put out trash like this, but something about the late seventies demanded this crap from jazz artists. Check out any electric jazz from the same time period for reference.
Anything produced after 1975 and before about 1990 is suspect.

Listen carefully to the samples and make your own judgement. If cheezy pith is what you're after, go for it. Otherwise, stick to the earlier albums.

What can one say after everything has been said about this landmark recording? Is all the hype surrounding Heavy Weather true? In a word, YES! Let me also respond by saying if someone were just to begin a jazz-rock CD collection, this is the recording I would recommend to buy first. Not only did it achieve both artistic and commercial success (we all know how difficult that is), but it represented a single moment in time where 3 musical geniuses (playing skills AND composing skills) appeared on the same album at the height of their powers. I know of no other recording by a single music group where I can say that was also the case.

I won't go into the details of the recording itself since I know that has already been written about in great detail. What I will say is for someone who is just beginning to learn about jazz-rock fusion, Heavy Weather is probably the easiest to initially understand. Because of the rock and pop elements that are so relatively dominant on this record (but still retaining an unquestionably high level of pure jazz "chops"), I can't imagine anyone who would outrightly dislike this CD. Even my mother likes it and she's more into folk and dixieland, lol!

There is a little bit of everything thrown into the mix