8:30

Artist: Weather Report
Label: Sony
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Live
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 074645766522
EAN: 0074645766522
ASIN: B0000029FR

Release Date: 1994-06-28

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Tracks:

Black Market
Teen Town
A Remark You Made
Slang
In A Silent Way
Birdland
Thanks For The Memory
Badia/Boogie Woogie Waltz Medley
8:30
Brown Street
The Orphan
Sightseeing

Similar Items:

Mr. Gone
Night Passage
Black Market
Heavy Weather
Word of Mouth

Customer Reviews:

Clear Skies Tonight.......2006-09-25

I saw Weather Report in two concerts to promote the album that featured three sides recorded live and one side of studio work. It was at a point where the band was at its commercial height, but not letting the burden of popularity weigh the group down (that was to come later when Joe Zawinful sacked Jaco Pastorius, as the great bassist began to succumb to his personal demons).

The live cuts highlight the music that many "new" fans expected; Black Market, Teen Town and Birdland. The band delivered their most famous songs, along with other selections and ample solo space, in concerts lasting more than two hours & typically starting at.....you guessed it, 8:30 pm.

The album cover aptly depicted the variety of fans Weather Report was drawing. It was one of the last jazz groups to truly break through the labels that plagued the music industry then and are still around today.

The live lineup of Zawinful, Wayne Shorter, Pastorius and Peter Erskine is perhaps the best known among casual and hardcore fans alike. The studio side features Zawinful's son, Erich, on percussion.

The album is a good sample of what made Weather Report great and I highly recommend it to those who want the "big picture" before delving into the outstanding studio-only releases.

Something bothers me about this album.......2006-03-11

Released in 1979, this album documents live performances of some of the greatest hits that Weather Report had made to this point, most notably "Birdland," "Black Market," and the like. These are great tunes, but there is something very self-conscious about the performances on this album, like they have to be recognizable and go in similar directions as the originals. As a result, the band seldom takes any kind of chances, preferring to rest on their laurels and deliver more of the same. True, they try some twists, like a swing groove to "Birdland" (the original was straight, although this song was born as swing) but the structure of the tune remains primarily the same, so no new direction is achieved. "Badia" and "Boogie Woogie Waltz" are replayed faster as a medley and in less depth, as if to make reference to what the crowd wanted but no more. One gets the feeling the band was sick of a lot of these tunes.

More disturbing are the solo performances. Jaco Pastorius gets his bass solo and cuts loose, playing and quoting anything and everything in a fairly obvious appeal to the crowd, which is more like a rock crowd than a jazz audience. Wayne Shorter gives an uncharacteristic somewhat cliche reading of "Thanks For The Memory" which recalls Sonny Rollins more than it does the adventurous tenor player who is really giving the performance. This would be fine if the performance came off as sincere (Sonny Rollins usually does) but it again seems like a crowd-pleasing effort. For a saxophonist who was really the last original-sounding tenor player EVER (since anyone who has come up in the last thirty years sounds like a mix of Coltrane and other mainstream influences--not that there's anything wrong with that) this is a very disappointing reading that is very predictable and thus meaningless.

What bothers me most is the sense that the band is making fun of traditional jazz and offering it as baby food to a hits-starved crowd. This is evident in the aforementioned solo performances and in the swing-styled "Birdland" and it's disappointing from such astute leaders as Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul, who shaped the jazz tradition as much as almost anyone.

Still, this album has some very strong redeeming moments. The first is the most jaw-droppingly AMAZING reading of "Teen Town." This tune made its debut on "Heavy Weather" as a three minute Jaco Pastorius feature and one got the feeling that it never quite fully developed or went in a direction. Well, here it does, turning into a really funky jam that features some brilliant soloing as well as accompaniment from the composer Pastorius. It is stretched to six minutes and is one of the few tunes on here that is redone with anything new added. Another highlight is Zawinul and Shorter playing a reharmonized rendition of the former's "In A Silent Way." Zawinul takes a roundabout way harmonically in the intro that seems to grow until it ends up in an unexpected key, and Shorter's first notes of the melody are chilling in their beauty. The crowd catches on (remarkably hip of them to remember something from ten years ago) and applauds in awe. The only problem is that it's too short and after the brilliant direction of the intro into the melody, the rest is anticlimactic. The last highlight is "Sightseeing," the only worthwhile tune cut in the studio to complete the double album. It returns the band to free-bop roots first explored by Shorter in the Miles Davis Quintet some fifteen years before, but the new sonic textures and this zany space-funk section at the end give it a new twist. This would be the new direction of the next album, "Night Passage," an absolutely brilliant record that proved that Zawinul and Shorter still had something left to give, even if that isn't fully evident on this record.

Overall, this is a competent rehashing of Weather Report hits with some brilliant and some disturbing moments interspersed. Weather Report fans might like to hear this for contrast and for "Teen Town" but those new to the band would do well to start with the studio albums, especially "Black Market." One side note is that the recently released "Live And Unreleased" contains two CDs worth of live performances between 1975-1983, and these are by and large less self-conscious and thus more sincere and fresh takes on some of the same tunes and others that were neglected on this album. That collection is superior to "8:30" and definitely worth a look.

Truly, WR at it's best........2004-06-06

It truly is an awesome album. I have fell in love with it over and over again as I grow older.

Weather Report at Its Peak.......2004-02-16

One of the finest examples of the incredible results that can occur when a group of musicians filled to the brim with talent, get together and play. 8:30 provides the listener with a fantastic blend of some Weather Report's best material and lets the outrageous lineup of Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul, Jaco Pastorius and Peter Erskine show there stuff. In particular, Black Market, Teen Town, In a Silent Way and the Badia/Boogie Woogie Waltz Medley plus the bass and sax solos, though every track is great.

A Nice Documentation Of What Was..........2003-11-08

8:30 by Weather Report is a great album which documents, and brings back the goodness & greatness of live performance. Overall, nearly every track is brilliant.

The opening track is WR's live take on Black Market, which I actually think is better than the original studio version. It even includes an interesting Shorter/Erskine musical break in the middle. The Second track is Jaco's "Teen Town", which is similar to the Heavy Weather Studio version, but nevertheless a bit messy. Track three is a wonderful, soft incarnation of Zawinul's "A Remark You Made".

As the album runs further, we come to a swing-style version of "Birdland". The only real let-down on this track is that unlike the studio version, there is no percussion section - by this, i mean, the original tambourine fill is missing. But nevertheless, this is still an great live take of Birdland.
The track, "Badia/Boogie Woogie Waltz Medley" shows a great crafting of two great tracks. It also documents music from their earlier days.

The title track, "8:30" is the first studio track on the album, and probably one of the best of all the studio tracks. It is an interesting mix of Zawinul synths - especially the Korg Vocorder. Jaco's drumming is great too.

There are only two real problems with this re-release of 8:30 -
1. The original second track, "Scarlet Woman" has been removed from this release. This is a pity, considering it may have been the best track on the album.
2. WR's 1973 album "Sweetnighter" is in the liner notes refered to as "Streetnighter" (oh, well).

A Great Live Album!

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