MR. GONE

I bought Heavy Weater when it was released and I played it for a year nearly every day, just one of those perfect records. I saw Weather Report live during the famous 1978 tour and well... when Mr Gone came out I was disappointed lika a lot of people.The record got back then a 1 star review in 'Down Beat', creating quite a stir and two issues later Weather Report made the 'Down beat' cover with Weather Report storms over Mr.Gone giving the band members, especially Zawinul a chance to defend the record. Well 30 years have passed and I must admit, I haven't listened a lot to the record since and when I got the CD the other day I was quite surprised in a positive way. While the former records where mainly band efforts Mr Gone is a studio product mainly due to Zawinul and Pastorius on production. It was still the early stage of polyphonic synths, Zawinul was into heavy keyboard treatment giving the record a slighly mechanical feeling just the opposite of the warm Heavy Weather, but on the other hand a real avantgarde record in terms of synth programming. Wayne shorter had a lot of outside the band work in 1978 and as a pun refering to the title was called Mr.Gone on this record. Even so he plays on all tracks his lines are mainly drowned in the multilayered synth arangemnts of Zawinul. The record has a great production level and good compositions among them the athmospheric The pursuit Of The Woman In the feather hat and the title track by Zawinul, two great Pastorius tracks River People and Punk Jazz and a great Shorter ballad The Elders arranged by Zawinul, maybe the only track where his presence is really to be felt. Mr.Gone always suffered to be compared to Heavy Weather and should be re-evaluated on his own values