LINER NOTES: Weather Report, Mr. Gone (1978)
“WEATHER REPORT are suffering an identity crisis which has completely mitigated the potential of Mr. Gone. Their unwillingness to pursue the avenues of progression opened up by Sweetnighter, Mysterious Traveller and Tale Spinnin'has curtailed the cerebral in favour of the repetitive, simpler statements of recent years.
And it isn't merely the old hat fusion argument — because they are not a jazz-rock band. At their best. Weather Report are able to define their own territory, the labels fall off and turn dusty.
The hints of electronic impersonality sensed on Black Market and Heavy Weather are almost welcome laid next to the inert and invisible facade of today. Musically, Mr. Gone is infuriating, not wilfully obscure but trivial. It revolves around a concept I've yet to fathom, though the gist of it is contrast, the idyll and the jungle, concrete or otherwise. The cover gives you some idea of this light and shade. Too bad the notes can't keep the promise.
The lack of a permanent percussionist is noticeable. Drum chores are split between Steve Gadd, Tony Williams and newcomer Peter Erskine, but three world-class drummers don't disguise the fractured consciousness of the mainmen. The gimmick ridden presence of Jaco Pastorius is one peg to hang the new lightweight model upon; a more important grouse is that Wayne Shorter, having slumbered out the previous two albums, has now gone into a deep sleep.
Josef Zawinul, well, he's good, somewhere near form. A lessening of energy from him would be disastrous. His opener, 'The Pursuit Of The Woman With The Feathered Hat', is jokey and pleasant. Intellectual muscles expand and contract to the mixture of keyboards and some exotic percussion, the smartest arrangement on the entire album. Packed with incident and colour this track gets you up for the punch which never comes.
Pastorius' 'River People' is the science fiction to Zawinul's avant garde. It isn't too bad, a neat tandem of loop bass and hard funk ARP expanding through a manic Prophet programme. Unfortunately, the hardware smothers Shorter's succinct soprano. You begin to wonder why the band are stating and not resolving.
'Young And Fine' is almost traditional for Zawinul; straight melody and clarity of theme are propelled by a three man rhythm section then picked out by Zawinul's melodica and careful Rhodes doodling. Shorter scats a tenor with the mood. It doesn't amount to much and maybe never tries. His own 'The Elders' amounts to even less.
Side two commences with the title track (which Angus MacKinnon drily asserted to be a reference to Shorter: an opinion he's withdrawn after Shorter's powerful and plentiful playing at last week's Hammersmith shows). The saxophonist's upsurge of outside activities, namely the "VSOP" spell with Herbie Hancock, might have awakened a hidden nerve. He certainly doesn't sound happy here.
Pastorius' intriguingly titled 'Punk Jazz' has some well-engineered transitions. Williams is expert on his cymbal work and Shorter gets overdubbed into a monstrously fine horn section. Shorter's stint with Hancock could account for the inclusion of 'Pinocchio', or it could be that Wayne has nothing new to offer Weather Report. Either way the best judgement of its merits will be divined by a brief spin of 'Nefertiti'. Back then with Miles the reading was still just as far out. The retread is so thin that Shorter has to be joking.
'And Then', the closer, threatens some get down to the disco jazz but Deneice Williams and Maurice White (all in the Columbia family), fail to render Sam Guest's "lyric" into anything of substance.
As there is no third tribute to a horn player ('Cannon Ball' and 'Birdland' the precedents), it's safe to assume that Mr. Gone is not a reference to Davis's Porgy and Bess, but a negative stasis. Weather Report have succumbed to the dangers of their own often brilliant impressionism. Still, as pioneers in the second American new wave, jazz, they are not worthy of tetchy dismissal. Their albums are notoriously slow burning, familiarity breeding contentment; it's just that Weather Report don't easily encompass the ordinary.
The competition isn't frightening them — that's a dilemma — but the ingredients for change are on the slate. Artistic aberrations are acceptable if they don't flirt with the customer's money. Either Weather Report get concrete or they buy a new barometer. It's time for some un-learning.”
-- Max Bell
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