Customer Reviews

Weather Report: Live at Montreux 1976

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For many of us Weather Report fanatics this is the Holy Grail of WP live videos. If you're like me, you already own a bootleg of this show. I have two, the second being slightly better in quality to the first, with even a hand held audience camera (horrible quality) filling in Dr Honora ex Causa/Directions tune which was missing from the television broadcast from whence the bootleg was born.

But this is a whole other level of quality. The good folks at Eagle Vision should be commended for taking the original filmed concert and lovingly restoring it to its full length. Even more impressive than the crystal clear video and continuity is the superior sound. We are given no less than three formats to choose from, Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS(!) and PCM stereo. The DTS sounds great on my system, putting this outstanding performance under an aural magnifying glass. One can hear so many details that the first viewing/listening was startling, even though I have viewed the bootleg countless times. The PCM stereo version is also superb-encoded as it is @48k and 16 bit, it surpasses CD specs and sounds it too, considering the 1976 concert quality source. I should note that the balance of the band is a little off at the beginning, but quickly adjusts to a satisfactory mix for most of the show. Overall , the bass is a bit weak and the percussion a little too forward for my tastes, but its close enough to not get in the way of really enjoying the music.

As for the performance, well, if you don't know why WP was considered such a big deal ,this document should convince you of their importance in modern jazz history. This was before they played the big concert venues and added all the lights and smoke. This is not a show band: this a seriously committed group of players who came to blow the walls off the hall. And blow the walls off they do. Presented with this 'take no prisoners' attitude, even the somewhat restrained Montreux audience is visibly moved to standing applause by the end.

This is the Heavy Weather band before Heavy Weather. (But listen: Zawinul was messing around with the Birdland lick at the beginning of ex causa-and isn't that the bass riff from River People that jaco's playing in Gibraltar?) The material ranges from early Zawinul (ex Causa) through Black Market. The intensity and focus never wavers for an instant, even in the introspective moments. It's fascinating to watch these younger incarnations of the legends we know today. This younger Zawinul, whose stage persona is not known to be particularly engaging, is postively (dare I say it?) gleeful at times. He even smiles on several occasions. Wayne is ever the enigmatic poet, rarely coming up for air to peer out at the crowd. This was Jaco Pasorius' second live gig with the band, and he seems to be out to prove himself to the Big Boys. There are no shennanigans and no grand standing on this set-Jaco's not playing to the crowd- he's clearly here to make music.

Another delight of this set is the spirited interplay between percussionist Manolo Badrena and drummer Alex Acuna. They smile,cajole and even playfully taunt one another,constantly upping the excitement on stage. They are a pleasure to watch. Their enthusiasm and good natured comradery adds to the overall good vibe of the performance. This band is having fun.

I noticed Amazon has lowered the price from the $14 I paid for my copy. Honestly, it would be well worth the price at twice the price. This is a long sought after gem. Don't miss it.

Now if only someone would come out with that legendary Belgrade video...

Simply an amazing show!!! Many WR fans have had this one from their bootleg collection and it ranks up there with one of their favorites. The Montreux Jazz Fest and Mr. Claude have done a wonderful job in restoring these historical concerts. Why have I seen this show over hundreds of times and still left shaking my head in disbelief. I hear that they are going to release the Mahavishnu 1974 show as well as the 84 band. I say bring them on all of them (even Stanley Clarke 1980), because Sony (baloney) aint doin a thing. In this particular show Shorter is the star, his solo on Black Market is mesmerizing as well as on Pastorius's Barbary Coast. Shorter is one of the best improvisers of all time, and here he is given so much space to play. Jaco actually was playing in the band for 3 or 4 months and he is killer all the way through. I wish this remastered version would have shown more camera angles with him playing, because he is spectacular. Nobody sounded like him at that time and no one sounded like the wizard Joe Zawinul on synths. Joe Zawinul is Weather Report!!! One of my favorite moments is when Jaco gets into the River People rift on Gilbraltar and you can see Zawinul start to hold in his drool from his mouth because it sounds so good. Then they take it to another level when Wayne comes in and they freak the music into another dimension. It's also great to see Joe and Jaco stare each other down, because it's a beautiful competitive collaborative effort. With this concert I can see why Jaco choose Alex Acuna on drums instead of Chester Thomas because they fit so well. This 76 show is better than the 78 Germany on Forecast Tomorrow in so many ways. I agree with fellow fans to release more Weather Report shows live because it was an event like no other. I wish the human race will be able to see the Belgrade show from 1980, because they go cosmic. But according to the Forecast Tomorrow booklet the master tape of that show was probably destroyed in 1999. Hopefully we can wish that it isn't and will see the light of day. Maybe Bill Graham's Wolfgang vault will release a show if they have any. Maybe by releasing these two DVD's more real listeners will take notice and request more and Sony will stop acting like this music never existed! Maybe we will see a Weather Report 1979 Montruex show, because they actually played there and it was taped, although I think there is a conspiracy with this show. Montrueux has a huge vault and it's amazing they are doing this because it's going to make a lot of die hard fusion fans so happy.

Featuring the line-up that went on to record Heavy Weather, this DVD really shows what a great band Weather Report were, especially live. 30 years on, it still sounds remarkably fresh. Jaco Pastorius had only joined the band 3 months before this recording and this is one of the earliest films of the man who changed the world of bass playing. Anyone familiar with the broadcast versions of this concert will be pleased to know that it includes Dr Honoris Causa/Directions but saddened to know it excludes the 1 minute spontaneous duet between Joe and Jaco as the band begin to leave the stage. The music features many tracks from their 1976 release Black Market and if the piano intro to Dr Honoris Causa sounds familiar, that's because it is an embryonic version of "Birdland". The sound is excellent but the filming is a bit claustrophobic, probably because of the small stage and you often wish they would show the person currently soloing etc. Line-Up Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, Jaco Pastorius, Alex Acuna and Manolo Badrena. At full retail price this is a great deal, so at discounted prices it is an even better deal, making it a must have DVD for any fan of this type of music.

I my opinion, the best of the recent DVD-releasings of two great WRs concerts from the golden years with Jaco Pastorius on bass. Amazing performances and caribian feel from the percussion duo Baderena and Acuna! (Why did Zawinul and Shorter change this winning team?) I will highly recommend this DVD - a must for all WR fans and the rest!

Taped live at this historic jazz festival in 1976. Equally historic are the personnel and the ever-evolving, trend setting band that was Weather Report.
Jaco had just joined up with Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter along with Alex Acuna and Manolo Badrena. These guys are slamming!
This was part of the "Black Market" tour. You can hear Joe working with the "Birdland" theme later in the set. A year later they would release "Heavy Weather".
What a joy to see and hear these guys! Jaco was just out of the gate having released his astounding "Jaco Pastorius" and having also recorded "Bright Size Life" w/Pat Metheny and "Hijeira"(sorry misspelled?)
with Joni Mitchell. Wayne and Joe were moving around rhythm section players with Weather Report. Alphonso Johnson left to work on a project with George Duke. It was perfect timing for Joe and Jaco to connect.
Being a jazz player and teacher, I highly recommend this to all players, especially the younger guys/gals. This is extremely well crafted, harmonically and rhythmically composed and improvised music performed by some of the best players in the history of jazz.
There are not many shows like this on video. This is of excellent quality for the time.
This band/music shedds a positive light on the genre that is jazz-rock "fusion".
I give this a 5(000,000) star rating!

Brian Derek, bassist/composer

I am amazed at the reviews of this dvd that are so negative. I found this to be extremely satisfying. All the songs are excellent, video is clear and music is tight. Alex Acuna is awesome. The talk of not enough Jaco is crazy. After all he was just a part of the band--all members seemed to be shown equally. If I had to say anything negative about it would be that Joe Zawinul's pants are too tight---but that's just the nature of the decade it was!! If you are into Weather Report BUY THIS!!

While worldclass musicians kept revolving around the nucleus of the band: keyboard wizzard and sonic genius Joe Zawinul and transcendental saxplayer Wayne Shorter, I think it's fair to say that this line-up, who went on to record their groundbreaking hit-album "Heavy Weather", was the classic one.

With the dynamic southamerican percussion/drum duo of Manolo Badrena and Alex Acuña. And basslegend Jaco Pastorius, the master of the fretless bass, who not only had the chops, but also - as this DVD shows - like his great idol Jimi Hendrix the stage-presence and the charisma of a true star. His solo-piece "Portrait Of Tracy" gives convincing evidence to why so many consider him the best bassist ever. But also his ensemble playing is brilliantly funky all the way.

I was very fortunate to see this band in Copenhagen the year after, and the words that kept resounding in my head during and after was 'electric church music'(the phrase Hendrix used to describe is more far our musical visions). And listening to this Montreux show certainly confirms my impression of a high soaring band, with roots in the earth and the minds firmly planted in deep space.

The only surprise is how relatively 'thin' Zawinul's keyboardsound is. Not least compared with his latest brilliant recordings: "Bird Jam" (mainly with african musicians) and "Brown Street" (with german Big Band). Makes me realize that the stern-faced Austrian visionary actually sounds and plays better than ever at 75!

If one should complain about anything, it should be the relatively short duration. But while the claim in the linernotes that this band cover more ground in an hour than most others do in a year might be slightly exaggerated, it's certainly not completely off the mark.

All in all another fine release in the exciting "Live at Montreux"-series. And as always the sound is very good, without being outstanding

No need to repeat what others have said, but perhaps my personal anecdote will resonate with some WR fans.

I was always crazy for the "Rumba Mama" Acuna / Badrena track on the "Heavy Weather" album, and its genuine audience ambience. On vinyl, it was an outstanding opener for side 2. On CD and vinyl, the segue from "Rumba Mama" into "Palladium" has always been, for me, one of modern music's high points.

Fast forward 30+ years and I'm watching this DVD for the first time. I hear the identical track (unedited) and see it performed LIVE. THAT was a revelation. All the visual "blanks" were filled in and everything fit just perfectly. Just for that experience, enough reason to buy the DVD.

1976 was the year of Weather Report's "Black Market" album, a year prior to "Heavy Weather". It was also a transition year for them; Alphonso Johnson, their first electric bassist, was leaving to tour with George Duke and Billy Cobham, and his replacement was a beanpole named John Francis Pastorius. I would have been happy to see either bass player on this DVD, but thankfully, this disc has the five-piece band that would make "Heavy Weather", including that beanpole, who may very well have been playing his first (or certainly one of his first) live gig with the band on this night.

He's so YOUNG here. The neck is fretless and filled, but the body isn't as dinged up as it would get. No baseball cap. No looking down all the time.

But it's JACO.

He was MAGIC.

The camera work is amazingly close - not just on JP, but on anyone who was soloing. Really good close-ups of the playing, almost too close in the case of drummer Alex Acuña and his large Fibes kit, two kick drums, a la Billy Cobham in those days. Stage very small. Audience respectful, but not overwhelmed, another reason why I think it was Jaco's first gig; if he had played out with them prior to this date, the Montreux audience would have known about him, and they would have reacting a lot more wildly than they did.

He does an impressive solo on his "Portrait of Tracy", working the amp at the end, which reminds me that he did that at a WR show I saw in New Paltz, NY in 1977. The difference was, by the time of that show, the word was out on Jaco, and the audience would have been going nuts during that piece; here, the audience just sits there.

Compared to the other performance videos that I have seen of him (the other two being the German show that is on the "Forecast: Tomorrow" set from a few years ago and the Joni Mitchell "Shadows and Light" show in Santa Barbara, where the guitar player was Pat Metheny), this is the best look at Jaco the player.

Audio is mixed to Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1, and while it's not true surround, it sounds a whole lot better than the plain mono audio of the "Forecast: Tomorrow" disc. It doesn't have a lot of low end, but you can give it that, because it's remarkable enough that a recording of this much quality could have been made a third of a century ago. All instruments come through loud and clear.

Zawinul plays a four keyboard stack with a Fender Rhodes at the bottom, and that got most of the playing. Shorter weaves it all together.

Acuña and Badrena cook. Especially on their duet, this performance of which, we come to find out, is the source of the (heavily edited) version that is known as "Rhumba Mama" on "Heavy Weather".

Zawinul goes into a piece that is entitled "Dr. Honoris Causa And Directions", but the melody is substantially what would become, at a far more upbeat tempo, "Birdland". This version picks up speed as they go through it, but, as seen here, it still hasn't been massaged into the tune that they made famous. Still, it's great to see and hear it played in an embryonic version. JP gets another close-up as he solos here, great camera work on the fingers. This version of the song doesn't yet have the part that corresponds to Jon Hendricks' lyric "Down those stairs, lose those cares, yeah, down in Birdland, yeah..." but it's still a treat to see.

The set closes with the right-in-the-groove "Gibraltar" from Black Market. Stellar.

Amazon is selling this DVD for a price comparable to that of an audio CD, and if you are a fan of Weather Report, and particularly of Jaco, this disc is a bargain and a half. Highly recommended.

After seeing Weather Report live, through all their endeavors, I was really pumped to see the WR group of 1976 with Alex Acuna and Manolo Badrena on this DVD. Somehow,and I realize that this came from a TV show,it was not what I was expecting. Being a Jaco fan you never really get a good chance to see him on this concert. The "panning" by the cameras were trying to be "artistic"but was pretty bad. The hesitancy of the band playing like the fullness was just not there. On the new box set "Forecast :Tomorrow" by WR, the DVD shows more creativity, much more emotion. On this Montreux DVD Jaco looks like he just stepped off the plane,looking at Zawinul for approval. Don't get me wrong, this is another must for WR report fans,but dont expect alot. The mix was not very good either. Jaco was poorly mixed. They should have really shined with their new tunes of "Heavy Weather", instead they do a lot from "Black Market". Jaco's solo on track 4 was ok, I have seen much better of him. I agree with the other writers that is historical and they should have put this out a long time ago.Go ahead and buy it! I was was most happy with Amazon's delivery of this in a very timely matter! Way to go Amazon!