FEATURED CD : Weather Report : Tale Spinnin'

[Duncan Glenday]

Credit for this featured CD : aith01

Based on a CD received from the collection bequeathed to Progressive Ears by the late Chris Buckley (Winkersnuff)

aith01's comments:


Weather Report is a band I've meant to get deeper invested in for several years. I only had Mysterious Traveler and Heavy Weather before this (both of which I greatly enjoy). This is the period I enjoy more, pre-Jaco basically. Wayne Shorter is probably my favorite sax player, and Joe Zawinul is a monster keyboardist. Hearing the two of them together never gets old for me. (Of course, the rest of the band are no slouches either -- I just don't know them as well as the aforementioned two guys.)

My fave track is probably "Lusitanos", but the opener "Man in the Green Shirt" has this jubilant sound that's hard to resist. I've listened to this album several times already, and I'm still learning all the ins and outs of it. There's so much to unpack still; one of those records that keeps on revealing more of itself over time. Really glad this is one of the discs that I received, and I'll be getting more WR stuff in the near future because of this.

[Progatron]

I love this album. Weather Report are among my top favourite bands of all time, so I'm an easy sell on just about any period of their career, but Tale Spinnin' is definitely right up there (I'm not sure if it quite hits the highs of Mysterious Traveler, but it's close). There's a great version of Freezing Fire on the Live And Unreleased collection BTW.

[pb2015]

Great album. A one-off as drummer Ndugu was with them only for these studio sessions, no live shows (he recorded it during time off from touring with Santana).

[SunRunner2]

I love this album. Weather Report are among my top favourite bands of all time, so I'm an easy sell on just about any period of their career, but Tale Spinnin' is definitely right up there (I'm not sure if it quite hits the highs of Mysterious Traveler, but it's close). There's a great version of Freezing Fire on the Live And Unreleased collection BTW.

Correct, and there is a knock out, 10 and a half minute version of "Man In A Green Shirt" on that spectacular album entitled "Live And Unreleased".

However, "Tail Spinnin" itself is another solid effort from the band with lots of energy and great playing by all. One track on the album that doesn't get much attention but deserves it is "Between The Thighs", which at 9:33 is the longest cut on the CD and gives them plenty of well-used opportunity to stretch out this fabulous instrumental adventure.

Man, I like all the Weather Report albums that I own.

[Steve F.]

Very excellent album. I enjoy it greatly.

[Monet]

Tale Spinnin' the album seamlessly continues the style of its predecessor 'Mysterious Traveler': easy-going and catchy jazz-fusion, but still rousing and varied, naturally also virtuoso as usual.
Four of the six tracks on Tale Spinnin' are Joe Zawinul's compositions, and in these the loose, flaky style is particularly evident. Funky piano runs by Zawinul, Shorter's virtuoso sax-playing, plus a driving bass and dense drums.
"Badia", a track that Zawinul composed in the 50's and named after his Egyptian girlfriend at the time, is an unusual composition. Zawinul completely dispenses with electronic sounds here, in addition to the piano, he plays various exotic string and percussion instruments here. Accordingly, the track has a distinctly oriental touch. A few text-free parts of Zawinul's voice reinforce the slightly surreal aura of the composition. Some parts of the album really bring back memories of the atmosphere from the early days of the band; to these ears, it's particularly "Five Short Stories", which is like an impressionistic sound painting, recorded as a pure Shorter / Zawinul duet without rhythmic components. It's nice end to a nice album.

[Rick L.]

#goodshit

[interbellum]

The album was rereleased on Music On Vinyl recently, but also as SACD with the original quadraphonic mix: https://www.discogs.com/release/1266...t-Tale-Spinnin

[Hobo Chang Ba]

Not my favorite by them, but a very solid one.

[Trane]

The second weaker (ahead of MT) of their first six albums (I include the Tokyo 72 in there)

but it is still in my top 6, since I care not for their later albums.

[Dave (in MA)]

Here's the Tale Spinnin' page from the great "Weather Report: The Annotated Discography" site.

https://www.weatherreportdiscography.org/tale-spinnin/

[wideopenears]

My fave band, and one of my earliest WR purchases. Still holds up. Love the Alphonso version of the band, from MT through Black Market. But I love every album WR released, including This is This.

Get Live and Unreleased, though, if you want hot versions of stuff from the Johnson-through-Bailey eras.....all killer live performances.

[pb2015]

Here's the Tale Spinnin' page from the great "Weather Report: The Annotated Discography" site.

https://www.weatherreportdiscography.org/tale-spinnin/

The author of that site Curt Bianchi wrote an excellent book about WR called Elegant People that came out this year. There are some details I didn't know about the Sweetnighter to Black Market era as he interviewed guys from that time like Eric Gravatt, Andrew White and Ishmael Wilburn who I have never read discussing Weather Report before.

[Trane]

The author of that site Curt Bianchi wrote an excellent book about WR called Elegant People that came out this year. There are some details I didn't know about the Sweetnighter to Black Market era as he interviewed guys from that time like Eric Gravatt, Andrew White and Ishmael Wilburn who I have never read discussing Weather Report before.

this (French) book is quite good and has a lot of "secondary roles" giving feedback

https://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/weatherreport/

[Dave (in MA)]

The author of that site Curt Bianchi wrote an excellent book about WR called Elegant People that came out this year. There are some details I didn't know about the Sweetnighter to Black Market era as he interviewed guys from that time like Eric Gravatt, Andrew White and Ishmael Wilburn who I have never read discussing Weather Report before.

I wonder if it might come out as an e-book.

[starless and bible black]

Tale Spinnin' was the first album that I bought by Weather Report back in 1975 and is still one of my favorites. Best songs; "Lusitanos", "Between The Thighs", "Man In The Green Shirt" "& "Badia". And as someone already said, the live version of "Freezing Fire" is fantastic on the Live And Unreleased set.

[starless and bible black]

The author of that site Curt Bianchi wrote an excellent book about WR called Elegant People that came out this year. There are some details I didn't know about the Sweetnighter to Black Market era as he interviewed guys from that time like Eric Gravatt, Andrew White and Ishmael Wilburn who I have never read discussing Weather Report before.

I picked up Curt Bianchi's book about Weather Report when I first heard about it two months ago. Excellent biography of the band and highly recommended for WR fans.

[StarThrower]

I'm a fan of all of their albums up to 1980. And the live album Cone mentioned. Also love Jaco's Birthday Concert CD which features a crack big band, great material, and excellent sound.

[FrippWire]

This album will continue to reveal itself to you. I've been listening since 1981 and it's still fresh.