Weather Report Archives

Rick Suchow is such a good dude. For years, he’s shared some fantastic videos we otherwise might never have seen. He just dropped another unreleased clip from Weather Report’s 1978 Astor Theater performance, with the band playing “Black Market.”

Wayne Shorter shared this video recently, and it brought back a lot of great memories. Weather Report (with Victor Bailey) took the stage on September 27, 1984, in Tokyo. Here’s the band performing Zawinul’s “Where The Moon Goes.”

We can always count on Rick Suchow to unearth some true gems. Here’s one he just shared of Weather Report (with Jaco Pastorius) performing “The Pursuit Of The Woman With The Feathered Hat” in 1978.

I stumbled upon a newly remastered version of Weather Report’s live performance in Belgrade on October 31, 1980. Jaco Pastorius is on fretted bass on this one, with the band tearing through “Birdland”, with Jaco’s “Liberty City” in the mix.

Weather Report’s “Black Market” was my introduction to the band. It was also my introduction to Jaco Pastorius and Alphonso Johnson. I’ve seen this video many times, but we’ve never shared it here: their live performance of “Black Market” at Montreux.

Just in time for Jaco Pastorius’s birthday today, Rick Suchow has shared another great video. This one, like others we’ve shared before, was recorded during Weather Report’s 1978 show in Reading, PA. The video was shot by Peter Erskine’s father, Dr. Fred Erskine and mixed with the audio feed from Brian Risner’s soundboard mix. “The interesting thing about this particular...

Our thoughts are with Victor Bailey as he struggles with serious health issues. Yesterday, Wayne Shorter shared a video of Weather Report performing in Japan in 1985. This particular clip of “D Flat Waltz” really took me back to a time spinning vinyl and admiring Victor’s work as a teenager. And it wasn’t just his work with Weather Report, but...

Today we will be tackling Jaco Pastorius’s bass line on the title track from Weather Report’s 1980 album, Night Passage. This is one of the best Weather Report albums. To me, it always sounds fresh and modern, like a timeless record. The group also includes drummer Peter Erskine and percussionist Robert Thomas Jr, who sound very tight together. In this...

Weather Report founding bassist Miroslav Vitous is revisiting his old band’s work on his latest album, Music of Weather Report. Czech bassist Vitous assembled a sextet to play the music of the famed fusion band, which he left in 1973. (His replacement was Alfonso Johnson, who was in turn, replaced by Jaco Pastorius). The result is a set shimmering with...

Jaco Pastorius and Weather Report fans have an early present this holiday season — Weather Report –The Legendary Live Tapes: 1978-1981. The previously unreleased tapes, sourced from the jazz-rock-fusion band’s soundboard recordings and from bootleg recordings, are arranged so that they reflect key performances, rather than the band’s typical set lists of the era, which featured the late Pastorius’ revelatory...

Weather Report’s 1973 album, Sweetnighter, has been released in a 180-gram vinyl audiophile limited edition. The record, the legendary jazz fusion group’s fourth, features two bassists — founding bassist Miroslav Vitous (who handles both acoustic and electric bass here, on what would be his last album as the group’s principal bassist) and multi-instrumentalist Andrew White on electric bass. The vinyl...

We have another video from the 1978 performances by Weather Report in Pennsylvania, thanks to Rick Suchow. This is “Scarlet Woman”, which features one of the greatest lineups ever: Jaco Pastorius, Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter and Peter Erskine. As we mentioned in the videos we’ve shared in the past from this show (“A Remark You Made” and “Birdland”), Dr. Fred...