BLACK MARKET

A lot of my friends who were into fusion in the seventies, the same friends who introduced me to Return To Forever, The Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Brand X, were also into Weather Report. And while I appreciate the talent of this band, and really love some of their individual work in other bands, I never really found the band's albums very exciting. And this, with some good but not great fusion, is no exception.

I think the main problem I have with Weather Report stems from Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter. With Shorter, he seems to concentrate on the soprano sax in this group. Soprano Sax to me usually brings to mind easy listening jazz. And Shorter's playing with Weather Report never seems to catch fire. And on Three Clowns, where I presume he's playing the lyricon, his noodling is just awful.

With Zawinul, it's the synth patches he chooses. Occasionally he finds a cool sound, but usually his patches just bore me.

All that said, there are some songs I like on this album. Most notably, Herandu comes very close to being what I like to hear in fusion. And Jaco plays on two songs. I can't complain about that.