It may be unfashionable, but I rather like Weather Report’s mid-seventies work, and anybody who shares this fondness will probably like this record. In essence, Zawinul is speaking in the language (even dialect) that he established with Weather Report. The album is full of those familiar chord voicings, exotically oblique melodies and major-minor tugs-of-war. As Wayne Shorter said in a recent interview, now that the composing axis of Weather Report is split, listeners will get the best of them as individuals in their solo projects. Dialects reveals that as a composer Zawinul prefers the more direct and usually uptempo approach as against Shorter’s more ambiguous and reflective style. (As it happens, Shorter’s solo album, Atlantis, is not particularly reflective, but that quality is something associated with his contributions to Weather Report and elsewhere.)
Bar the voices, Zawinul plays everything here – electric drums, harmony, bass line, melodies and solos, and he makes a very good job of it. Solo synthesiser projects have been known to produce rather wooden results, but not so with Joe: he achieves a full and spontaneous sound, and two minutes into The Harvest it’s apparent that there’s a thinking and fertile mind at work. Most of the tunes are based around some sort of modal riff, which may change occasionally, but in many cases change is effected by shifts in harmony, melody, rhythm or volume against that static pedal motif.
Recommended to those who are partial to mid-period (circa Heavy Weather) Weather Report.
Discography
The Harvest; Waiting For The Rain; Zeebop; The Great Empire (22.14) – Carnavalito; 6AM/Walking On The Nile; Peace (22.03)
Joe Zawinul (syn); Bobby McFerrin, Carl Anderson, Dee Dee Bellson, Alfie Silas (v). Recorded circa 1985, Pasadena.
(CBS 26813)
