Weather Report

Again, it was former members of Miles Davis' groups who constituted the core of the most enduring group of this type: Weather Report.

Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter, leaders and main members of Weather Report

Weather Report, first band formation; L-R: Alphonse Mouzon, Joe Zawinul, Miroslav Vitous, Wayne Shorter, Airto Moreira (although Airto Moreira actually was replacing Don Alias)

In late 1970 Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul (piano) and Miroslav Vitous (bass) invited Alphonse Mouzon (drums) and Airto Moreira (exotic percussion instrument) to create climates of a most meteorological diversity. Their repertoire was often put together like classical programme music - it told a story in the same way symphonic poems compose by European musicians of the 19th century did.

Weather Report, 1977; L-R: Joe Zawinul, Manolo Badrena, Wayne Shorter, Alex Acuna, Jaco Pastorius

Weather Report's music was then directed toward an ever-more-diverse fusion of influences, in which the binary scanning of rock and Latin music became more and more important. In 1974 Vitous made way for the electric bass player Alphonso Johnson, while Joe Zawinul began to explore the power of synthesizers. But the group did not receive the blessing of the public until the 1976 arrival of Jaco Pastorius, who, until his death in 1987, was the most original virtuoso of the electric bass.

Jaco Pastorious

The records Black Market (1976) and Heavy Weather (1977) are counted among the finest successes of the genre. On this last album, the title 'Bridland', which paid homage to the tradition of the big-band entertaintment of the thirties, was overwhelming success.

Weather Report, 1978 Band Formation; (L-R): Jaco Pastorius, Peter Erskine, Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter

Nevertheless, despite the loyalty of a vast audience and the excellent rhythm tandem of Pastorius and the drummer Peter Erskine, disagreements between Shorter and Zawinul provoked Weaher Report's breakup in 1985, a decade and half after its creation.

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The Endurance Of Miles Davis

Throughout the sixties Miles Davis was haunted by the short time (1958-9) Bill Evans and John Coltrane were both in his group. Twice he replaced his pianist, first with Wynton Kelly, then with Herbie Hancock, who combined the refinements of Bill Evans and the more vigorous statement of the funk pianist. On the other hand, it took him several years before he found the replacement for John Coltrane in the person of Wayne Shorter.

(L-R) Wynton Kelly, Gene Ramey (bass)

When he did, a new era opened up for Miles Davis, marked by recordings that today are considered to be masterpieces of modern jazz for small groups. Thus, from one year to the next, E.S.P, Miles Smiles, Nefertiti and Miles In The Sky, among others, raised and then answered a series of musical questions. Davis' quintet was, at that time, a truly experimental group - each entrance into the studio would bring new development.

  

Herbie Hancock

Wayne Shorter

In this way, the rhythm section exploited the heritage of Bill Evans trio: Herbie Hancock (piano) was suggestive; Ron Carter (bass) no longer stated the tempo systematically but imposed a powerful sense of pulsation; Tony Williams (drums), sophisticated and daring, freed himself from accompanist's role. he took the Elvin Jones' poly rhythm, gave it air, and diversified it by superimposing figures conceived in binary measures. In session after session, the quintet explored a repertoire dependant on Wayne Shorter's innovative ideas. Shorter, a master improviser, showed Davis a way to widen the range of liberties allowed by modal playing even further. On the stage Davis stayed with a more conventional program, but the risks he took in the studio changed the way the public saw the band.

  

Miles Davis Quintet

Ron Carter

Like the innovations of Charlie Parker twenty years earlier, these measures, ground-breaking at the time, have become the conventions of small-group jazz

Tony Williams

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Hard Bop: A Return To Blues And Gospel

Having invaded the market during the first half of the fifties, cool jazz tempted certain black artists with its sophistication and restraint. It spurred the next new wave-hard bop, which featured loud, full-voices instrumental sound and emotional performances. It was opportunity for musicians to return to the root Africans-Americans music, blues and gospel, but it was also their opportunity to renew their ties with black audiences, baffled by the avant-gardist  aspects of modern jazz.

Benny Golson

The craze of rhythm and blues was as its peak, and suddenly everyone was talking about soul. Through this music the black community proudly displayed its cultural and spiritual differences, distinguishing itself from American puritanism by reconciling body and soul, dance and religious trances, sexual ecstasy and mystical heights. soul music of the black churches: it addressed the dancer and spoke of love.

Art Blakey

Blues March

In coming back to the forms of the blues or the spiritual, jazz became 'churchy'. Certain titles were entirely unambiguous: The Sermon, The Preacher, Prayers Meeting. But there was also funk (a word derived from slang allusions to bodily odours). Close to physical pleasures, simple, direct, peremptory and blatantly joyous, hard bop, feeding off both these currents, was the expression of a proud black community, sure of the outcome of its struggles. To be convinced all you have to do is listen to Benny Golson's compositions for Art Blakey - such as 'Blues March', 'Moanin' or 'Along Came Betty' - or Horace Silvers's themes - 'Song for My Father' or 'Nica's Dream'.

The Jazz Messengers

 Endowed with a vital energy, the drummer Art Blakey led the Jazz Messengers, the beacon group of hard bop. Blakey discovered many talents: Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett and dozens of others- and, in effect, conducted their apprenticeships in hard bop.

[left to right] Freddie Hubbard, Curtis Fuller, and Wayne Shorter during Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers' Mosaic Sessions' Englewood Cliffs NJ, October 2 1961 (photo by Francis Wolff)

  The indelible message was about the importance of the rhythm section. In early bop the rhythm section simply stated the chords and maintained the tempo., offering a stimulating contrast to the soloist.
In hard bop, however, its task wash to establish the atmosphere, according to repetitive formulas inspired by gospel and soul music. Rhythmic arrangements provoked dancers into swaying. As in rhythm and blues music, the hard bop beat relied strongly on syncopation in traditional four-beat measures. But even four-beat measures no longer had the exclusivity they had had since the twenties, as the three-part division became more and more frequently used: in fact, it is related to the very definition of swing, the essence of Africa-American music.

Keith Jarret

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