Jazz Rock Fusion Guitar: Weather Report - 1976 [2002] "Black Market"

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.

This is Weather Report's sixth studio album and the first to feature bass player Jaco Pastorius, who appears on two tracks, one of which was his own composition "Barbary Coast." The back cover photo shows Pastorius, Chester Thompson, and Alex Acuña with the band, although bass player Alphonso Johnson played on the majority of the record's tracks. The album draws heavily from African influences and its style could be described as "world fusion". The second track, "Cannon Ball", is a tribute to saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, Zawinul's employer for several years during the 1960s. Adderley died a few months before Black Market was recorded.

The shifts in Weather Report's personnel come fast and furious now, with Narada Michael Walden and Chester Thompson as the drummers, Alex Acuna and Don Alias at the percussion table, and Alphonso Johnson giving way to the mighty, martyred Jaco Pastorius. It is interesting to hear Pastorius expanding the bass role only incrementally over what the more funk-oriented Johnson was doing at this early point -- that is, until "Barbary Coast," where suddenly Jaco leaps athletically forward into the spotlight. Joe Zawinul or just Zawinul, as he preferred to be billed -- contributed all of side one's compositions, mostly Third World-flavored workouts except for "Cannon Ball," a touching tribute to his ex-boss Cannonball Adderley (who had died the year before). Shorter, Pastorius, and Johnson split the remainder of the tracks, with Shorter now set in a long-limbed compositional mode for electric bands that would serve him into the 1990s. While it goes without saying that most Weather Report albums are transition albums, this diverse record is even more transient than most, paving the way for WR's most popular period while retaining the old sense of adventure.

Changing personnel marked each of Weather Report’s first five albums, and Black Market carried forth that tradition, with Chester Thompson, Narada Michael Walden, Alex Acuña, and Jaco Pastorius all making their Weather Report recording debuts.

Asked about the changes in a March 1976 article, Zawinul said, “We’re always happy with the group, because if we’re not happy, we change it. There are a lot of musicians out there in the world. All the people who have played with us are great mother-fucking musicians. They have fantastic skills. But sometimes they’re going in one direction and we’re going in another one, so we have to make a change. Changing musicians gives us fresh blood, new ideas.”

In that article, Shorter and Zawinul said it didn’t really matter who played what–it was the end result that counted. “You can enjoy a symphony orchestra without knowing everybody’s name,” Shorter said. “You don’t have to know who the concertmaster is to know that the string section is incredible.” Zawinul added, “I’ve been playing our new album [Black Market] for some other musicians, and even some of them can’t always tell who’s playing what, or what instruments are being used at a given time. I like that. I like that a lot. Why should people know? We’re not a bunch of individual musicians. We’re a group.”

The personnel for Black Market took shape over the course of 1975, following the release of Weather Report’s previous album, Tale Spinnin’. Early in the year the problematic drum chair was filled by Thompson, who was recommended by Johnson. “Alphonso was in the band,” Thompson recalled, “and we had already played together in a couple of situations, and he urged me to come down and jam, so I guess it was kind of an informal audition, just free playing. And it was one of those bands that just clicked. I was not at all nervous. I knew they’d had several drummers in the year before. I had a large and pretty wide experience. I’d been interested in playing lots of different kinds of music. I’d been in experimental kinds of bands, and in technically demanding kinds of bands — [Frank] Zappa’s was the most technically demanding … I’d had a lot of chance to play jazz; by the time I was 15, I was playing in really good jazz groups. I played funk, too, probably an equal amount, having grown up in the ’60s, with early James Brown and Motown going on.”

“Al Johnson had been on Mysterious Traveller, Tale Spinnin’, and part of Black Market when he told us he wanted to quit,” Zawinul recalled in 1984. “He wanted to form a band with George Duke where he was the co-leader, rather than just a sideman. We felt that everybody should do what they wanted to do, and by that time I had already met Jaco [Pastorius]. Jaco had sent me a tape of his band, and I was really impressed with the way he played; but I wasn’t sure if he could really play funk. [Drummer] Tony Williams had played with him, and assured us that Jaco could play anything. Jaco was a great Cannonball Adderley fan, and I had written a song called ‘Cannon Ball,’ so I said to myself, ‘it might be a good idea, just for the fun of it, to have Jaco play on that tune and audition him at the same time.’ We flew him in, he played on the tune, he wrote a song for Black Market, and the rest is history!”

Track listing:

1. "Black Market" Joe Zawinul 6:28

2. "Cannon Ball" Zawinul 4:36

3. "Gibraltar" Zawinul 8:16

4. "Elegant People" Wayne Shorter 5:03

5. "Three Clowns" Shorter 3:31

6. "Barbary Coast" Jaco Pastorius 3:19

7. "Herandnu" Alphonso Johnson 6:36

Personnel:

Joe Zawinul – Yamaha Grand Piano, Rhodes Electric Piano, 2 × ARP 2600, Oberheim Polyphonic Synthesizer, orchestration

Wayne Shorter – Selmer soprano and tenor saxophones, Computone Lyricon

Alphonso Johnson – electric bass