Sweetnighter
Occupation
- Saxophone: Wayne Shorter
- Keyboards: Joe Zawinul
- Electric bass, double bass: Miroslav Vitouš
- E -Bass, English Horn: Andrew White
- Drums: Herschel Dwellingham, Eric Gravatt
- Percussion, flute: Dom Um Romão
- Percussion: Muruga Booker
Sweetnighter is the third studio album by Weather Report. The album reached # 2 on the 1973 Billboard jazz charts; after its publication in the formation Leserpoll the downbeat was chosen as "Jazz Group of the Year ".
Genesis
Early 1973 had the band Weather Report, although artistic success, but the commercial breakthrough came. Concerts of the band were - from day to day - either outstanding or fizzled despite Sounds interesting, because the pieces of the band so far rather served as a vehicle for collective improvisations. Therefore, it was decided to turn the band into more commercial direction. Joe Zawinul suggested that for the next album to take pieces as a basis, the funk and groove were emphasized.
Wayne Shorter and Miroslav Vitouš were apparently willing to accept such a change. Zawinul had therefore to Sweetnighter a big impact. He wrote half of the pieces and also arranged pieces of Shorter. Zawinul took for the disc recording other musicians like the drummer Herschel Dwellingham and multi-instrumentalist Andrew White, who was struck by a funk -oriented bass both at Fifth Dimension as well as Stevie Wonder. The album, which was named after a Wayne Shorter composition was received with varying line ( from quintets to octets ) between 3 and 7 February 1973 by Phil Giambalvo in Connecticut Recording Studio in New Haven.
With his contributions Zawinul, Weather Report began music from collective improvisation to guide to structured compositions with an emphasis on rhythm, groove and funk. [A 1] [A 2] In interviews Zawinul said later that he had with the pieces " 125th Street Congress " and "Boogie Woogie Waltz" the hip- hop beat invented. Besides these two pieces Sweetnighter certainly contains also pieces that are more reminiscent of the previous albums. [A 1]
Reception
In Downbeat Sweetnighter was considered so central that it has been discussed several times in the same issue. Joe Klee, who gave the album the highest rating (five stars), it turned out that Weather Report, although the first band with several percussionists was not, but the most successful. The team Gravatt Dewllingham Romão Muruga produce more than polyrhythms: It plays percussion with the same intensity and crispness as they Zawinul generating Shorter on his horns on his keyboards and Vitouš on bass. In contrast, Will Smith Sweetnighter were only three stars and said that the album much like its two predecessors, was nice, but could not really convince. In spite of the Groove the band to bring little with.
Richard S. Ginell on Allmusic rated the album 4.5 stars out of 5 stars and wrote " The disappearance of the loose ensemble interplay is more than offset by the increase in rhythmic pressure ." [A 3] Hernan M. Campbell rated at sputnik music. com Sweetnighter 4.5 stars out of 5 points as "superb" and summarizes his review with " Sweetnighter leaves all the avant-garde tendencies of his predecessors behind, focusing on more jubilant music." [A 4]
The critics Richard Cook and Brian Morton, reviewed the album with the second highest rating of 3 ½ stars in their Penguin Guide to Jazz, designated Sweetnighter as a work of " consolidation " and stressed in this context the Boogie Woogie Waltz out that ( before publication Birdland 1977) the most accessible composition of the band was also shown to be more significant aspect of the upcoming post-production, mainly " the juicy reverberation of keyboards and percussion " concerns. This brought the group sound on a more solid basis and was responsible for ensuring that henceforth get the best productions of the band in the studio. Boogie Woogie Waltz and 125th Street Congress apparently went out of jam sessions, which resulted in a hypnotic feeling; Miroslav Vitouš ' Will was a very nice composition, the circles to Zawinul's piano licks.