Weather Report – Heavy Weather (1977)
[Album 630/1001]
As a student, is there anything more exciting than seeing the ominous red bar on the weather network website?
With the cautionary lightning bolt icon to command your attention, or terrifying terms like ‘treacherous’ to describe the anticipated road conditions?
Click to LEARN MORE?
You can almost hear the buses being cancelled, snow day!
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Monday Evening’s Weather Alert in Kingston
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It’s a shame this Weather Report LP didn’t come with such an eye-catching red banner.
For a couple of reasons:
1) Quite frankly, given the strong musicianship contained within, Heavy Weather ought to have a click option for listeners to open & LEARN MORE.
2) I’ll confess, the red banner has a way of claiming my undivided attention.
Though I’ve quite enjoyed my several Heavy Weather spins so far, I don’t believe any of the listens have been 100% uninterrupted/free of multi-tasking.
Perhaps that is the danger of instrumental music for me: if I’m not paying attention to lyrics, I have a tendency to just enjoy the ride.
Though there are plenty of thundering basslines & lots of lightning-fast timbale work, this enjoyable ride is far from treacherous.
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Alas, for Kingston students (and OK, maybe, just maybe, the Kingston staff too), the Monday evening weather warnings may have overstated the treacherous nature of Tuesday’s commute.
The bus cancellations were not to be; schools remained open, classes ran as scheduled.
But only for a couple more weeks until the semester 1 exams begin.
And while I’ve found this album works well in the background while marking, I look forward to the marking pile being completed, so I can give this Weather Report the full attention it deserves.
Verbalize the Positive
Some of these tunes (Birdland especially) would be fun to play with our high school jazz band!
1001albumsin10years 
‘Birdland’ was very popular, making this the most successful Weather Report album. But you’re correct – it all slips down pretty easily. I prefer the early, more experimental stuff (the first three albums in particular) but Heavy Weather would make an accessible entry point for a fusion virgin (with or without lightning bolt).
– Bruce
I think the only other fusion album I have in the collection is Bitches Brew – and it’s safe to say, Heavy Weather was slightly more immediately accessible!
I know there are more famous songs, but the one I like the most is Havona. Great keyboard intro, crazy bass parts.
I rarely say no to a crazy bass part!
I have to admit to having never heard much Weather Report. I’ve always kinda thought of them as being like wallpaper? Certainly from what I’ve heard… not that all music has to shake me to be enjoyed, so maybe I’ve been unfair.
I could see that critique – even 24 hours removed from my last listen, Birdland is really the only standout track that I recall by name, the rest have since blended together in a short amount of time
Hmm.
No counter-argument here!
Actually Geoff We got another 25 cm’s of snow this past Sunday Night into Monday pm until it tailed off all schools were closed even the University..
The girls in this house were happy..
I still had to go to work as that’s the joys of working at a Hospital!
At least 50 Cm in the last two weeks of snow here…!
My goodness Deke, that’s intense!
Perhaps another 5-7 cm’s tomorrow hahaha
UPATE:
The snow ended around 3pm today(Friday Pm) Thinking we got around close to 8cm-10 cm…this stuff won’t stop this year!
Shovelled at 6 am before work and finished the rest when I got home at 3;15pm…
need a break haha..
Good for the cardio haha…Thinking were pushing close to 70 cm of snow this year! Funny thing was up to December 14th you could still see grass on the ground!
Not anymore! haha
My goodness – next year at Christmas, to go along with the Box Sets, perhaps the family can chip in for a snowblower?!
HAHAHA…no kidding! I’m lucky that we have 3 neighbours close by who have snowblowers and are kind enough to plow us out especially when the Grader goes by ….
I’m already sick winter. How about you?
I’m ready for some less winter-y weather too!
I was in Toronto over Christmas and it was like Spring. I returned to Ottawa and it’s fricken c-c-c-cold!
Ohhh I love this one! Glad you got to hear it!
I’m pleased I got to hear it too!
Some dicey weather here too. Careful showing that -5C temp to our friends in northern climes (like James in Regina!). He’ll laugh!
We won’t get much sympathy from Saskatchewanians for that sort of temperature!
Nope, not likely!
Unfortunately it never snows where I’m from (it’s basically a desert) and, because it’s always so hot here, school still opens when it’s 45 degrees C (105+ F??)… I have only experienced the pleasure of a weather day once, after a massive storm that felled half the trees around my school and that caused power outages to literally everyone in the entire state! Shall have to check out this album nonetheless!!
Power outage day!
My goodness, I couldn’t imagine being in the school on a 45C day – even by 30C, everyone’s barely hanging on (students and teachers!) in the classroom
Haha, it’s pretty awful at 45- though, air conditioning is amazing to the point that you need to bring a jumper to school well into the 30s! However, by the mid 40s my entire school is a furnace and nobody (indeed students nor teachers) is capable of any sort of concentration- there really is nothing you can really do when there’s a heatwave here! Thankfully most of that sort of weather is from Jan-March (the beginning of the school year), so it doesn’t impede on assessment…