Weather+report

Weather Report's biggest-selling album is that ideal thing, a popular and artistic success – and for the same reasons. For one thing, Joe Zawinul revealed an unexpectedly potent commercial streak for the first time since his Cannonball Adderley days, contributing what has become a perennial hit, "Birdland." Indeed, "Birdland" is a remarkable bit of record-making, a unified, ever-developing piece of music that evokes, without in any way imitating, a joyous evening on 52nd St. with a big band…

Weather Report's biggest-selling album is that ideal thing, a popular and artistic success – and for the same reasons…

The shifts in Weather Report's personnel come fast and furious now, with Narada Michael Walden and Chester Thompson as the drummers, Alex Acuna and Don Alias at the percussion table, and Alphonso Johnson giving way to the mighty, martyred Jaco Pastorius…

Or shall we say, that is that, the final album by a group called Weather Report, now captained and guided by Josef Zawinul. The photo of Zawinul and Wayne Shorter shaking hands on the back cover of the LP is definitely a farewell gesture, for Shorter turns up on only three of the eight cuts (having left the band while this record was being made), and the record's world-music slant gives it a closer kinship with Zawinul's subsequent albums than with WR's earlier output…

Beyond Description (1973-1989) is a companion set to 2001's 12-disc box The Golden Road (1965-1973), which collected all of the Grateful Dead's albums for Warner Bros, adding bonus tracks to each album, along with a double-disc collection of early pre-Warner recordings called "Birth of the Dead" for good measure…

Before releasing their debut album, Extra Ball gained some popularity among polish jazz fans. Leaded by guitarist Jarosław Śmietana, band starded off at the Jazz on the Oder-River festival in 1974, winning the second, and a year later, the first prize. Thus Extra Ball wasn't unknown at the time, unfortunately they are rather forgotten these days…

The second album of this Danish group has very similar sound textures as found from their first album. They are emphasizing acoustic, carefully constructed harmonies, analogue organs and beautiful singing melodies for painting lush feelings to being paired with upright rock'n'roll passages…

For his third album, Nighthawks at the Diner, Tom Waits set up a nightclub in the studio, invited an audience, and cut a 70-minute, two-LP set of new songs. It's an appropriate format for compositions that deal even more graphically and, for the first time, humorously with Waits' late-night world of bars and diners…

"Los Elementales", a concept-album about the four elements, is a delicious gem of fusion prog. The band's sound is tighter that never before, reinforcing the jazzy side of their offering and taking it to a particularly intense level…