Shakti
&
Weather Report

HAMMERSMITH
ODEON

Transcribed by One-Worder

Rod Sibley

_____________________________________

GOD BLESS Josef Zawinul and Wayne Shorter, two musicians who've had the
good sense to exclude themselves - and Weather Report, their band - from
the hysterical, fastbuck miasma of what's commonly (and misleadingly)
termed jazzrock.

And God bless John McLaughlin, who's changed course not a moment too
soon, ditching his absurdly synthetic Mahavishnu III in favor of the all
acoustic Shakti.

But for every action there's an equal and opposing reaction. In this
case, the Billy Cobham/George Duke Band, whose four members seem content to
crank out an excess of autofunk.

Bassist Alphonso Johnson, previously in Weather Report, is
underemployed, and guitarist John Scofield exemplifies only too well the
lack of sensitivity currently accepted as suitable for this vacuous medium.
Cobham's drumming is over-muscled and monochromatic, whilst Duke's
Zappaesque attempt to inject some humor with a UFO and bug-eyed monster
recitation (plus synthesizer bleeps) amused as much as would a mutilated
corpse.

The Cobham/Duke alliance is, in short, a non-starter.

Shakti, blithely announced as a fusion of Indian and Western music, are
an intimidating proposition. The effortless interplay between guitar,
violin, tabla and ghatam (a pot drum) is unnerving and mesmeric, its
spontaneity self-evident. Shakti's material confined itself to three
pieces, all to be found on their recent album.

McLaughlin's scurried solo introducing the otherwise tranquil "Lotus
Feet" is dexterously fast (he now plays a cross-strung instrument for added
sonority), but in this context quite rightly so: an expression of deeply
felt emotion rather than offhand pyrotechnics. L. Shankar's sinuous violin
is similarly intense and both percussionists have, as they say, very sweet
hands. Shakti make any formal distinction between structure and
improvisation entirely redundant. An invigorating display of disciplined
virtuosity.

Meanwhile Weather Report proceed inscrutably. Further shuffles in the
rhythm section have moved the exuberant Alex Acuna to the drum kit and have
brought in bassist Jaco Pastorius as well as a new percussionist.

Shorter has put aside the Lyricon (a synthesized horn that hasn't yet
fulfilled its potential) in favor of more conventional amplified saxes. At
the same time he's simply playing alot more, demonstrating effectively that
tenor sax is just as audible over electric instrumentation as either alto
or soprano. The man is nearly fifty, still refining his idiosyncratic
technique with irrepressible vigor, as content to blow flourishing melody
lines as to provide angular counterpoint.

Zawinul responds with sensuous Fender Rhodes piano, bunches of chords
flipped into the rhythmic flux. His synthesizer playing is remarkable, both
for its tantalizing restraint and for its sounding quite unlike anything
electronic keyboards are more usually compelled to produce: ethereal,
birdlike flutings and primal exultations.

Pastorius operates within a radically different tonal register to
Johnson; it's much fuller and more deep- ranged. It suits the way the band
play now.

The set was mostly comprised of selections from "Black Market". "Barbary
Coast" - on record a somewhat peremptory workout - has been extended into
an effusive slipstream, dominated by Shorter's tenor, constructed around
Pastorius' bopping harmonics. "Scarlet Woman," a throwback to "Mysterious
Traveller", still disturbs with Shorter's sudden entry on skirling alto.
The explosive "Gibraltar" closes, but not before Zawinul and Shorter's
customarily tender acoustic duet.

To berate these two men, as some do, for "lowering standards" seems
pointless and ungrateful. The current Weather Report have an air of direct,
purposeful compactness about them, in contrast to the more loose-limbed
performances they gave in London last year. However, their melodic and
rhythmic vocabulary remains disarmingly extensive, a musicologist's
delight.

Any unit that sets out to combine and control such a profusion of
pan-African and Black American aspects must include musicians of real
maturity and imagination. Zawinul and Shorter have such qualifications and,
unlike so many of their ex-Miles contemporaries, use them to the full.