Galactic Vinyl Memories #7

 It's a short detour from Joni Mitchell to Weather Report, thanks to WR's Jaco Pastorius providing bass on Hejira! 

I bought this 1979 double live album (entitled 8:30) in 1985. Not sure why. I'd seen a TV documentary about Weather Report (the South Bank Show, 1984) and thought they might be up my street, but I was a bit confounded by the music when I actually listened to it properly. I'd obviously heard a bit of their music on the doco and knew it was "jazz/fusion" (whatever that is) but I think I was expecting something a bit more proggy/keyboardy than what I actually got. As weird as it sounds now, in those days it was normal to take a punt on a record even when you had no more than a vague idea of what it might sound like, or even just because you liked the artwork or the band name or song titles. There was no world-wide web and no reliable way of checking out records beforehand. (As an aside, when I moved to the Netherlands, I found out that many Dutch record shops still had listening booths where you could check out a CD prior to purchase but I don't remember this being an option in the UK, at least not with vinyl). I bought a ton of records this way and was rarely disappointed!

Despite my initial reservations, I did end up quite enjoying this record, and eventually acquired a few more Weather Report albums, although this remains my only vinyl purchase. It's in superb condition and still plays perfectly. I particularly like "A Remark You Made", which is a Zawinul composition, which is a really beautiful, slow, evocative jazz piece. The cover on this record is a gorgeous piece of artwork.

Hmm... where do we go from here? Well, a certain Chester Thompson played drums in Weather Report so perhaps there's a clue that we may be drifting back into the arena of prog.

Hope you're enjoying these posts, and please check out my fundraising page for the Cardiff Half-Marathon, in just over a week:

https://www.justgiving.com/page/alastair-reynolds-1713971449990