Stormy Six from Milan, Italy was one of the original bands in the RIO movement and appeared in the famous on March 12th 1978 in the New London Theatre in London. However, as opposed to the other bands appearing with them, they did not start out their musical career as a RIO sounding band…
Certainly the most enigmatic Stormy Six CD release, this album consist of two different albums recorded in 1976, although one content's worth, called Pinocchio Bazaar (from track 16 until 25) did not see a release until the Fonitcentra CD reissue in the mid-90's, which uses the Cliché artwork and just adds the extra tracks and Pinocchio Bazaar name. An enjoyable album that can also be used as starting point for people who wants to approach the genre.
This double-CD has 24 different groups of fusion musicians (including some from Europe) paying tribute to Weather Report. Despite the personnel and often the instrumentation changing from track to track, there is a unity to the project and many of the bands sound quite a bit like Weather Report, either purposely as part of the tribute or naturally. The programming is somewhat random and the bands bring back the sound, grooves, and spirits of Weather Report rather than necessarily always sticking to their compositions. All in all, this is a heartfelt and very well-played tribute that can also serve as an introduction to a cross-section of some of today's top fusion musicians, many of whom are not household names yet.
The renowned Cuban jazz drummer Ignacio Berroa's debut album as a bandleader is a percolating fusion of African rhythms, neo bop passages, and Berroa's own trademark technically brilliant yet intuitive playing. "Joao Su Merced" takes a litany of Berroa's personal influences as a foundation for extended forays into Afro-Cuban fusion, while "La Comparsa" alternates between straight-ahead jazz and Cuban-influenced solos. Berroa's supple, supportive accompaniment is an education in jazz drumming, though school was never like this.
The first of these is an album dedicated to 11 compositions by the American tenor and soprano saxophonist Wayne Shorter. Inspired by John Coltrane, Shorter made the news in the 1960s through his association with the Jazz Messengers, after which he worked intensively with the Miles Davis Quintet for many years, replenishing Davis’s band book with his own compositions. From 1971 to 1986 Shorter was on the move with the successful jazz rock group Weather Report, and since then he has been active with his own groups. The Pieranunzi Trio plays Wayne Shorter with an eye for the finishing touch and a feeling for style.