Customer Reviews

Black Market

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The odd thing about this record is that because the credits don't say who played on what track, most people assume Jaco played on 90% of it. I myself thought so, since the bass playing on it is unreal and such a big improvement over the last Alphonso Johnson WR record I'd heard 'Mysterious Traveller.' But as Bill Milkowski mentions in his Jaco Biography, Pastorious only played on 2 tracks: Barbary Coast and Cannonball; the rest is my man, Alphonso, and if you listen to 'TaleSpinnin,' which until a couple of years ago wasn't available on CD, you'll hear the intermediate stage of the creative flowering that culminated in 'Black Market.' 'Talespinnin' is an unbelievable record, even better than 'Black Market' and 'Heavy Weather' and almost as good as 'Sweetnighter.' Alphonso's playing there as well as on 'Black Market' owes nothing to Jaco who was unknown at the time, whereas Jaco's playing owes a lot to Alphonso's, since WR was an established act and a favorite of Jaco's. So amidst the big Jaco legend, credit should be given where it's due and it's about time a fully credited, fully linear noted version of 'Black Market' became available to set the record straight.

I own about eight Weather Report albums and of all of that I have this is the best. Its the kind of album you can listen to beginning to end without skipping any songs or getting tired of any songs. This album also really showcases the musical genius of Zawinal, Shorter, and for the first time Jaco Pastorius.

This is a great album. I am writing to correct the other reviewers. Jaco Pastorius plays on only two tracks on this album - Barbary Coast and Cannonball. The bassist on the other tracks is Alphonso Johnson, who is also a great musician. If you like the sound of this album check out Tail Spinnin' which preceded it. It has the same Carribean sound and the same or nearly the same line up.

Black Market is the best display of the melodic and rhythmic ingenuity that is Weather Report. Black Market is the best "first step" to enjoying the Weather.

Love 'em all but this one the most. Zawinul makes his electronic keys sound very organic. The grooves are hot and funky yet sound very natural. The integration of other cultures' musical modes predicts world music trends of the future in a masterful way. All players sound relaxed and do great work. Narada Michael Walden dividing drum tracks with Chester Thompson (post Zappa, pre Genesis), Acuna on percussion, Jaco on Bass (2 tracks) and the underappreciated Alphonso Johnson on the rest. Of course the interplay of Zawinul's keyboard work and Wayne Shorter's Sax is playful, intense and very satisfying. One of the best!

Weather Report could rarely hold down a rhythm section for more than a year, and here we see the band in transition from 'Tale Spinnin' to the seven-star classic 'Heavy Weather'. Al Johnson would be replaced by Jaco Pastorius on bass, the drummer was shifting from Ngudu to Chester Thompson to Acuna, and percussionist from Alyrio Lima to Acuna to the notorious Badrena. It got so bad that co-leader Zawinul would later audition drummers like Omar Hakim down the phone. So the tasteful photo of the band posing with various bits of fresh fruit that you'll see on the back cover of the CD gives the illusion of stability. In truth it represents a period of a few milliseconds in the band's history. Before the cheese and biscuits course arrived, the band would have gone through at least five changes of percussionist. (After this album, by the way, Chester Thompson went on to tour with rock band Genesis to allow Phil Collins to concentrate on crooning.)

The extraordinary thing about Weather Report is that it was the rhythms that attracted so many people. Although ostensibly the front men and main composers, Zawinul and Shorter really just provided the backdrop for their incredible rhythm sections. Sometimes they just got in the way. On 'Mysterious Traveller' there are some marvellous Al Johnson bass lines where you'd love to turn up the volume, but you know you can't because you know there's another blast from Shorter just round the corner that will give you a heart attack, it's so loud.

'Black Market' was one of those LPs where side one always got a lot more play than side two. And rightly so. They should appeal to any intelligent rock fan, to anyone who likes a good bass line, and to anyone who likes tapping out the drums on a tabletop. You could even dance to much of this.

You cannot go wrong in buying any of the Weather Report albums in the period stretching from 'Sweetnighter' to 'Heavy Weather'. All are at least five-star.

Chapter 6 of the Weather Report saga finds our man Joe Zawinul obtaining an Oberheim polyphonic synthesizer. The good news is that nobody can play them like our Mr. Z, though by this point the experimentation of the band's eponymous debut and the open-ended jams of "Sweetnighter" have been left far behind for much more tightly structured, daresay poppish, compositions. It is not hard to imagine Mr. Z careening around his Pasadena home studio like some deranged mad scientist proclaiming "I've got zee formula!!!" (Electronically reprogramming his keyboards so that the bass is on the right hand side would not come until Chapter 9. That stint in the Aspen ski lodge would be even later still.)

As Chapter 6 opens, our Dr. Funkenstein ("so ziss ist zee formula!") is still holding Wayne Shorter incommunicado in a safehouse in Newark, only allowing him occasional public appearances such as the well, elegant, "Elegant People." Legions of drummers are brought in (and out), reportedly a half dozen at one recording session. ("Vee can play zeese rhyzems. Vy kon't you?") A photographer is hired to provide an illusion of fraternity -- the band sitting around a communal fruit-laden table. But look carefully: only Zawinul and drummer Chester Thompson have both hands visible. Shorter's left hand is not visible - he was chained to his chair, as was percussionist Alex Acuna. Only Thompson was able to escape. (That actually isn't Jaco Pastorious in the middle - it's a cardboard cut-out.)

The hidden story behind Chapter 6: Alphonso Johnson. Give Jaco his due - his bass playing is superb on the two cuts ("Cannon Ball," "Barbary Coast,") on which he plays, but it was Al who was holding down the fort for the rest of the production and turns in the sadly overlooked "Hernandnu." (Try saying that ten times real fast.)

"Black Market:" the final shake-down cruise before Dr. Z sent his juggernaut plowing into chapter 's 7 "Heavy Weather."

When I first picked this album up, I was tempted to dismiss a lot of it as elevator music. There are plenty of catchy melodies played played over third-world rhythms with instrumentation that we'd associate with the smooth jazz crowd. The compositions here are definitely closer to pop songs than on earlier WR albums. But further listening reveals a lot more depth; even a tune like "Cannon Ball" (Zawinul's tribute to his ex-boss, Cannonball Adderley), which is about as muzak-ish as this record gets, has an absolutely killer bridge. The drummer on most of the songs is Chester Thompson, who melds perfectly with Alphonso Johnson. There are quite a lot of highlights on this album -- "Gibraltar" (another groovy Zawinul number), Shorter's classic "Elegant People", and the title track. Alphonso Johnson contributes a winner with "Herandnu" (these tunes are his swansong with the group), and his replacement Jaco Pastorius shows off his virtuosity on "Barbary Coast". (Jaco also plays on "Cannon Ball".) Though I prefer Zawinul's early playing on the Fender Rhodes, as far as synthesizer playing this is probably his peak. The Weather Report albums after this one are generally a lot less exciting but Black Market should be placed in shopping cart.

After "Mysterious Traveller" and "Tale Spinnin'" was released (both five star recordings in their own right) it would have been perhaps too much to ask this band to deliver a third consecutive 5 star album. I've known other bands to deliver two consecutive 5-star recordings but never one that delivered three in a row. Yet somehow Weather Report pulled this trifecta off back in 1976. This is even more remarkable considering the Zawinul and Shorter effectively rotated the remaining three chairs (drummer, percussionist, and bassist) from WR's prior recording by the time "Black Market" was completed! How did this happen?

One reason was Chester Thompson, the drummer (except for one cut) on the album. "Black Market" is the most rock influenced of WR's studio albums and the groove as a result just kicks. Chester went on to bigger (but not better) things with Phil Collins soon after but his contribution on Black Market was invaluable. He was my favorite alumnus of all the Weather Report drummers.

Another reason is that Alphonso Johnson did his best bass work for WR on "Black Market" and the two tunes Jaco played on (while somewhat different in style) fully continued that level of excellence. Jaco, of course, went on to set a new standard for the fretless electric bass the following year. But this album had the best bass playing of any WR album prior to "Heavy Weather".

Compositionally this was not WR's strongest album ("Mysterious Traveller" was) but 5 of the 7 tunes were top notch ("Gibraltar" and "Hernandu" being the two not quite as good as the others). "Elegant People", written by Wayne Shorter, is probably the album's masterpiece. Every player on that particular piece makes a tremdous contribution to the overall sound, one of the best group-integrated efforts in jazz (and rock) ever recorded.

The few relative weaknesses in the recording (Zawinul's penchant to somewhat overutilize pentatonic riffs in his compositions, Shorter not playing a saxophone instead of a wind controller in Three Clowns, and Wayne's soloing not being utilized often enough) is more than made up by "Black Market"'s many artistic assets. This is also my favorite WR album in terms of the quintessential jazz-rock groove between the bassist and the drummer. (It's ironic that Chester and Jaco apparently could not work together down the road which led Chester to leave the group shortly thereafter)

Would it have been asking entirely too much for a fourth consecutive 5 star album after this one?? Yes, but the world was not yet prepared for what was to come in the following year (although Jaco had thrown in some hints in "Cannonball" and "Barbary Coast"). But "Black Market" served the music world notice that Weather Report was clearly on a roll.

Black Market - Weather Report, released 1976.

During the seventies and early eighties, when Weather Report were at their height, they regularly won awards for best modern jazz or jazz-rock fusion albums, and when you Black Market, you'll understand why.

If you're worried that this "fusion" stuff might be hard to listen to, very complicated or cerebral, then don't be! Blackmarket is very accessible, with salsa tinged tunes, fabulous Caribbean beats, interesting bass lines, and of course accomplished, but to the point, sax solos from Shorter. For me, though, the synthesiser playing really stands out, (narrowly beating the bass playing which is also outstanding), good old Joe Zawinul playing some of his best here.

This, you must remember, is 70's synth playing. Just imagine him fiddling with his knobs (coo!), finding some weird sound, and finding a way to squeeze it into a song somehow, and he wasn't afraid to give it a bit of welly! If you like twiddly bits in music (and I do, I do!) then this album is just heaven! Zawinul can coax the most incredible sounds from a keyboard, and he does so with gusto. His playing is full of energy, and is very uplifting.

Overall, this is a great album, the songs are catchy, the playing is top notch, and the variety on the album is impressive. When I heard Black Market for the first time, it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand out. You know that feeling you get when you've just seen a really great film, read a really good book, seen some fabulous art? Well, I got that feeling after hearing this album! So now.

The upshot of all this is that this is a very good album, one I'd recommend to anyone.