Weekend Weather Report # 4 - Solo Exploration (Calm Before The Storm Part 1)

A triple helping this weekend (parts 2 & 3 tomorrow)!

After Miles, & before the debut of the Weather Report Group itself, the founding fathers (Zawinul and Shorter) were figuring out their place in the jazz world and putting out solo albums as part of the process.

Shorter had released his first solo album as a bandleader in 1959 - a straight ahead jazz swing album featuring Jimmy Cobb on drums and Lee Morgan on trumpet. Ten years later, and fresh from the intoxicating experience of working with Miles Davis, Shorter was experimenting with something much closer to "free jazz".

His 1969 solo album "Super Nova" features a strong shift to his recently acquired soprano saxophone, the instrument that Shorter would make such a special feature of with Weather Report. This album is interesting also for the inclusion of bassist Miroslav Vitous, the "third founder" of the original Weather Report group that was soon to set sail.

Fusion fans should be able to pick out a young John McLaughlin's guitar noodlings woven here and there, although there's another guitarist on the track also, Sonny Sharrock. The track here is "Water Babies" a rearrangement of an earlier Shorter composition, designed as a vehicle for his fleet-fingered excursions on the soprano sax!

Perhaps not a remarkable album, "Super Nova" does nevertheless give a good perspective on Shorter's musical mood just prior to joining up with Zawinul and Vitous to record that incredible first Weather Report album (which everyone needs to own if they don't already, and which I will review quite soon as part of this series!).

Schooled by Coltrane, nurtured by Art Blakey, challenged by Miles Davis, Shorter was almost ready to co-found his own "legend of jazz".

MM