Unknown Soldier [7:57]
The Moors [4:40]
Crystal [7:16]
Second Sunday In August [4:09]
Medley: Vertical Invader/T.H./Dr. Honoris
Causa [10:10]
Surucucu [7:42]
Directions [4:37]
Josef Zawinul – Electric
& Acoustic Keyboard
Wayne Shorter – Reeds
Miroslav Vitous – Bass
Eric Gravatt – Drums
With:
Dom Um Romao – Percussion
Andrew White- English Horn
Hubert Laws, Jr – Flute
Wilmer Wise – D and Piccolo Trumpet
Yolande Bavan, Joshie Armstrong, Chapman Roberts
– vocalists
Roger Powell – Consultant
Ralph Towner – 12-string Guitar
In 1971 Weather Report released
their highly influential, very successful,
self titled album and started on a pathway
that would eventually define an entire genre
of music. Few other bands in jazz were influential
in the way that Weather Report was, incorporating
electronic instruments and rock beats into
their sound to fuse together two entirely
different, nearly antithetical realms of music.
When "I Sing the Body Electric"
was released, with the sound the group had
experimented with while on tour in Japan,
Columbia claimed that "’I Sing the Body
Electric’… demonstrates a musical step beyond
the band’s first, artistically successful
recording Weather Report." As
it has gone down in the annals of music as
one of the truly great recordings in jazz,
this would have to be considered an almost
laughably reserved endorsement of the recording.
For those unfamiliar with early Weather Report,
however, this is not Heavy Weather.
Jaco Pastorious was not yet with the band,
and you will not find anything quite like
"Birdland" here. The album is full
of churning, moody, intense music that is
far closer to Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew
than to the later near-pop recordings that
Weather Report would create. "Unknown
Soldier" is a moody anti-war musical
statement that defies both jazz and rock,
never allowing itself to be classified as
anything other than great music. Recorded
live, "Vertical Invader/T.H./Dr. Honoris
Causa", "Surucucu", and "Directions"
form what was the original second-side of
the album, and serve as adventures in time-signature
and musical form. These recordings are a testament
to the time the band spent in Japan, and are
very much a document displaying a defining
point in the history of jazz.
Indeed, much of this album is a deconstruction
of what had come before as much as a construction
of a new form of music. Taking the group-improvisation
methodology of Dixieland, combining it with
the instruments and sensibilities of a rock
& roll jam band, and the virtuosic technique
of a collection of the greatest of bebop musicians,
this was truly fusion in the truest sense
of the word, and before the word became a
trite appellation for anything that happened
to be pop/rock music that had an improvising
trumpet or saxophone instead of a vocalist.
As far as the remastering, the studio tracks
clean up incredibly well. There seemed to
be some analog noise in the live recordings,
but with the crowd noise and the wide variety
of metal percussion equipment heavily utilized
by Eric Gravatt during these performances,
the noise is hardly noticeable. It certainly
would not be considered distracting.
There is nothing that can
be said about this album that has not been
said before. It stands the test of time, still
sounding fresh, new, and vibrant. It was incredibly
influential and successful. The individual
musicians on the album are recognized as belonging
on the Mount Olympus of modern music. It is
simply one of the great albums of the 1970s.
If you have never had the opportunity to discover
I Sing the Body Electric, you really
should.
Patrick Gary
CD Reviews
Columbia 5128972 [49:31] ADD
