Mr. Gone

Weather Report

Product Details

• Audio CD (December 29, 1990)
• Original Release Date: 1978
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B0000027EW
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #158,861 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The concept was fine, March 3, 2006

By	Michael Hardin (South Duxbury, Vermont United States) - See all my reviews

The review forum here, with all its radical difference of opinion, is very revealing of how controversial this album still is 25 years after the fact. One camp claims brilliant experiments and great success, and the other claims overproduction and selling out to the pop music industry. It speaks to the polarized nature of this nation that such a drastic gap exists.

Honestly I don't think either opinion is quite right. This album, if it really is a concession to the pop music industry, is a very poor concession. I find tracks like the title track, "Pinocchio," and "The Elders" to be, if anything, less accessible to the average listener than almost anything Weather Report did after "Sweetnighter." "Pursuit of the Woman in the Feathered Hat" is of the world fusion variety, no more pop-influenced than anything on, say, "Tale Spinnin'" or "Black Market." The only overt pop appeal I can see is on "And Then," "River People," and maybe "Young and Fine." Weather Report touched on pop music much more successfully (albeit by accident) on "Heavy Weather."

As for those who sing this album's praises, I have to say that I don't find the experiments all that interesting. "River People" features an excursion on Zawinul's Prophet 5 synthesizer but the tune really doesn't take off until the band comes all the way in. The title track would be interesting if the harmonic interest was anywhere near the level to which musicians (like Wayne Shorter who was IN THIS BAND) took it in post-bop. Then "Young and Fine," clearly a successor to "Palladium," is downright boring in its harmonic loop (basically a I-VI-II-V which had existed since the 30s) and uncreative quasi-Latin groove. On top of that, Zawinul's synthesizers fill up every crack of space so the music can't breathe. But the biggest problem with this album is not the way it was conceived, it is the way it was executed. At this point, Weather Report didn't really have a full band; Alex Acuna and Manolo Badrena had left, Peter Erskine was not a full member and there was no longer an auxiliary percussionist. Weather Report's success prior to this album, though largely rooted in the brilliant compositions of Zawinul and Shorter, depended heavily on the musicianship of the band and its rapport as a whole. Even if some of the tunes were weaker or somewhat cheezy, the consistently high level of playing and group interaction always carried the music. But it doesn't here; too much is done with borrowed drummers and overdubs. Then there is the matter of "Punk Jazz," which begins with an AMAZING duet between Jaco Pastorius and guest drummer Tony Williams. This gives way to almost a film-noir medium swing section that could have actually been very interesting if the chords had been voiced a little differently (and not played on a horn-imitating synthesizer) and the drums had been tweaked. Unfortunately the group rapport didn't exist and thus this tune doesn't groove except for the beginning. It could have been something.

Overall, this album is okay, but it could have been better. Zawinul had exhausted his creative capacity in certain genres at this point, although with a little digging back into the jazz tradition, Weather Report made "Night Passage," a brilliant album from 1980 which is worth checking out. "Mr. Gone" has grown on me, and is worth checking out to see what you think in terms of the controversy, but for my money it's not the best Weather Report. The musicianship and group dynamic just falls flat.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Weather Report in Transition, October 9, 2000

By	John Simley (Wheaton, Illinois, United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Mr. Gone captures Weather Report in a period of transition, flying high after the commercial success of their previous recording, Heavy Weather. The band also is struggling to find a drummer (Alex Acuna, Tony Williams, Peter Erskine and even Jaco Pastorius take the chair). This release initially garnered a poor review. And it is a little schizophrenic. The title cut, Mr. Gone, has an atonal melody that glides over a sinister 16-note bassline (the title was given by Wayne Shorter who, marvelling at its strangeness, remarked "Man, that's gone! That's MISTER gone!"). Punk Jazz opens with an urgent bass solo that leads into a complex but beautiful orchestration and soaring soprano solo. River People builds out on a disco beat (it was offered as a disco tune at the time of its release), but is most notable for the bassline, which constantly switches downbeats. Shorter's Pinocchio is resurrected here in a fade-in that makes it entirely too brief, but very tightly performed. Of all the songs, the least remarkable is Young and Fine, noodling on and on. Inconsistent, but interesting, Mr. Gone shows the band breaking out of its formulas and stretching in many directions, which surely confounded music critics.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Punk Jazz,Funk Jazz-What Does It Matter?, October 6, 2005

By	Andre S. Grindle "Andre' Grindle" (Brewer Maine) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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Jaco,Shorter,Erksine and Zawinul are certainly at about the top of their musical game on 'Mr.Gone',the 1978 follow up to their classic 'Heavy Weather' album.But the albums are very different.Wheras the previous record presented a very accesible variation on Weather Report's classic sound 'Mr.Gone' has far has more variety,and also more subversive considering the nature of highly electric music such as this.
"The Pursuit Of The Woman With The Feathered Hat" is a your garden variety WR electric carnival,colored perhaps more then usual with Zawinul's twisted synthesizers.From my point of view the standout number is Jaco's "River People"-half of the composition is a rousing solo on the newly introduced Prophet V polyphonic synthesizer and then the tune suddenly dives into a grooving Jaco-styled bass-funk jam-a very memorable tune.Two other highlites are the electric be-bop style of another Jaco tune "Punk Jazz",one of his classics.The album comes to a close with "And Then",a very pop oriented piece featuring soaring vocals from Denise Williams and Maurice White.
'Mr.Gone" manages to be very different and in the case of "Young And Fine" very much like it's predecessor in parts.The mastering of this CD is also unusually wonderful.The only thing flawed about this CD is the liner notes written by Bill Milowski,a critic for Downbeat magazine known for it's highly critical diatribes on electric jazz of all sorts.His notes yammer on about Wayne Shorter not being heard enough on the album,it not being Joe Zawinul's favorite Weather Report album and about Pastorious's brilliant 'River People' having a 'dated' disco pulse.
As far as the last critism it is unabashadly incorrect.'Mr.Gone' is actually one of the least commercial Weather Report outings and has no real relation to pop music.It is very diverse and parts of the album sound like synthesized be-bop jazz,almost a parody in some ways that might have offended hardcore jazz critics and fans.But in 1978 that was very easy to do anyway and 'Mr.Gone' is a CD that deserves to be heard and acknowledged on it's own terms.And I myself am very proud to own this CD.