John Francis "Jaco" Pastorius III was an American jazz bassist, composer, and producer. He recorded albums as a solo artist and band leader and was a member of the jazz fusion group Weather Report from 1976 to 1981. He also collaborated with numerous artists, including Pat Metheny and Joni Mitchell.
Weather Report was an American jazz fusion band active from 1970 to 1986. The band was founded in 1970 by Austrian keyboardist Joe Zawinul, American saxophonist Wayne Shorter, Czech bassist Miroslav Vitouš, American drummer Alphonse Mouzon as well as American percussionists Don Alias and Barbara Burton. The band was initially co-led by co-frontmen Zawinul and Shorter but, subsequently as the 1970s progressed, Zawinul largely became the sole musical leader of the group. Other prominent members at various points in the band's lifespan included Jaco Pastorius, Alphonso Johnson, Victor Bailey, Chester Thompson, Peter Erskine, Airto Moreira, and Alex Acuña. Throughout most of its existence, the band was a quintet consisting of Zawinul, Shorter, a bass guitarist, a drummer, and a percussionist.
Josef Erich Zawinul was an Austrian jazz and jazz fusion keyboardist and composer. First coming to prominence with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, Zawinul went on to play with Miles Davis and to become one of the creators of jazz fusion, a musical genre that combined jazz with rock. He co-founded the groups Weather Report and The Zawinul Syndicate. He pioneered the use of electric piano and synthesizer, and was named "Best Electric Keyboardist" twenty-eight times by the readers of DownBeat magazine.
Word of Mouth is the second solo studio album by American bassist Jaco Pastorius, released in 1981, while he was still a member of the jazz fusion group Weather Report, and also the name of a big band that Pastorius assembled and with which he toured from 1981 to 1983.
8:30 is the second live album from the jazz fusion group Weather Report, issued in 1979 by ARC/Columbia Records. The album rose to No. 3 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart and No. 47 on the Billboard 200 chart. 8:30 also won a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Fusion Performance.
Don Juan's Reckless Daughter is a 1977 double album by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. Her ninth album, it is unusual for its experimental style, expanding even further on the jazz-influenced sound of Mitchell's previous recordings. Mitchell has stated that, close to completing her contract with Asylum Records, she allowed this album to be looser than anything she had done previously.
Black Market is the sixth studio album by American jazz fusion band Weather Report. Released in 1976, it was produced by Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter. It was recorded between December 1975 and January 1976 and released in March 1976 through Columbia Records. Columbia released it again as a digitally remastered CD in 1991.
Alejandro Neciosup Acuña, known professionally as Alex Acuña, is a Peruvian–American jazz drummer and percussionist.
Mr. Gone is the eighth studio album by jazz fusion band Weather Report released in 1978 by ARC/Columbia Records. The album reached number one on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart.
Night Passage is the ninth studio album by Weather Report, released in 1980. The tracks were recorded on July 12 and 13, 1980, at The Complex studios in Los Angeles, except for "Madagascar", recorded live at the Festival Hall, Osaka, Japan on June 29 of the same year.
Weather Report is the tenth studio album by the American jazz fusion band Weather Report, released in January 1982. The band's first album is also self-titled, causing confusion among consumers and retailers upon its release. It is the final album featuring bass guitarist Jaco Pastorius and drummer Peter Erskine in the rhythm section.
"Birdland" is a jazz/pop song written by Joe Zawinul of the band Weather Report as a tribute to the Birdland nightclub in New York City, which appeared on the band's 1977 album Heavy Weather. The Manhattan Transfer won a Grammy Award with their 1979 version of the song, which had lyrics by Jon Hendricks. Quincy Jones won two Grammy Awards for the version of the piece he included on his 1989 album Back on the Block. The leading Cuban band Los Van Van included an extended interpolation of the piece in their song Tim Pop/Birdland.
Live and Unreleased is a compilation of live recordings of the jazz fusion band Weather Report, released on Legacy Recordings in 2002. The tracks are taken from live performances that took place from November 27, 1975 to June 3, 1983. It is their third official live recording after the Japan-only Live in Tokyo from 1972 and 8:30 from 1979, although previous albums such as Heavy Weather (1977) and Night Passage (1980) also included occasional live tracks.
Forecast: Tomorrow is a 3-CD/1-DVD career-spanning compilation of recordings of Weather Report. The 37 tracks are presented chronologically, beginning with three tracks pre–Weather Report, from ensemble duties with Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley (Zawinul), and from a Shorter solo album. In addition to two previously unreleased tracks, the set closes with DJ Logic's remix of "125th Street Congress".
Manolo Badrena is a percussionist most noted for his work with Weather Report from 1976 to 1977. He has made contributions to over 100 recordings that span jazz, world music, pop, and Latin music. Badrena has played with The Zawinul Syndicate, the Rolling Stones, Mezzoforte, Joni Mitchell, Spyro Gyra, Art Blakey, Bill Evans, Steve Khan, Carla Bley, Talking Heads, Blondie, Michael Franks, Ahmad Jamal, Hugo Fattoruso, and others.
Faces & Places is a jazz album by Joe Zawinul, released in 2002 on ESC Records. This album was nominated to Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album.
The discography of Weather Report, an American jazz band with a career lasting sixteen years between 1970 and 1986, consists of fourteen studio albums, three live albums, eleven compilation albums, five singles, one B-side, and six video albums.
The Zawinul Syndicate was a jazz fusion band formed by Austrian keyboardist Joe Zawinul in 1988. The band evolved out of Zawinul's former band Weather Report. The band adhered to Zawinul's roots in jazz. Their style could be described as a combination of unusual grooves, driving and swinging rhythms and many borrowings from different music cultures.
Robert Thomas Jr. is an American jazz percussionist and hand drummer. He is known as an innovator in Be-bop and hand drumming, and has been nominated for two Grammy awards. He is also a visual artist, working as a painter.
The Legendary Live Tapes: 1978–1981 is a four-CD live recording of Weather Report on Columbia, Sony, released on November 20, 2015. Discs one and three are quintet recordings from 1980 to 1981, while discs two and four are quartet recordings from 1978. Most of the music was recorded on analog tape by the band's then drummer Peter Erskine and front of house mixing engineer Brian Risner. In the liner notes, Erskine provides insight into Weather Report's live performances and life on tour via a song by song discussion.
