Classic line-up performing for German TV show Beat Club and available for the first time on DVD.
Weather Report was established in the latter half of 1970 by Austrian-born keyboardist, Jo Zawinul and tenor and soprano sax player, Wayne Shorter, a long-time Miles collaborator. In the band's first incarnation they were joined by Miroslav Vitous (basses), Alphonse Mouzon (drums) and Airto Moreira (percussion). Together they recorded the band's eponymous first album in March 1971.
Eschewing the populist, indeed almost obligatory, contemporary requirement for an electric guitar - irrespective of the musical genre, Weather Report's continually evolving personnel nevertheless remained rooted in the same instrumental line-up though, in later years, often reduced by the absence of a percussionist to a quartet.
The direction that Weather Report's musical journey would take had been clearly signposted during Zawinul and Shorter's orientation with Miles. Nevertheless, the new course charted by their debut Weather Report album featured acoustic bass and no synthesizers. Not long after the release of the album, Mouzon and Moreira departed and were replaced by Eric Gravatt on drums and Dom Um Romao on percussion. It is this line-up, responsible for an altogether earthier sounding offering, that went on to record the band's sophomore release, I Sing The Body Electric, and which is featured performing a set for groundbreaking German TV show Beat Club that is made commercially available for the first time on this DVD.
