Mysterious Traveller

Soaring, spacy, strange, beautiful, Mysterious Traveller stands as a testament to the Golden Age of the Fusion era. With much company in the genre, this album stands out in its expressivness and its restraint. No ten minute guitar solos here, just beautiful ensemble playing and creative arranging. It is really an album to treasure.

...took place sometime during my sophomore year of college in 1974, upon the album's release. My best college friend, a rock and jazz drummer, played it for me one afternoon in his dorm room after a nice ingesting of cannabinoid smoke. "Nubian Sundance" immediately knocked me off my feet, set me on the path of being a Weather Report devotee, and I was with them all the way through the release of THIS IS THIS!, when they closed shop and went their separate ways. This was a band simply beyond definition--no one had ever come close to the sound that Zawinul & Shorter conceived, and MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER could not have been a better route for me to have been turned on to their incredible music. Along with Return To Forever and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, fusion jazz (<--as I prefer to call it) took hold of me in the mid-70s, along with progressive rock & electronic new age music...and gave me a much deeper, more grounded appreciation for original, inventive & experimental music.

My favorite album. It's so organic and creative. It takes me to another world when I listen to it.

The title song on this album holds all that makes "jazz fusion" uniquely distinct from the commercial dilutions that commonly float in the air of malls and elevators today. Its apex can be found where we hear Wayne Shorter hold what can only be called a "blue note" on his tenor and soprano saxophone, simultaneously. Like listening to Louis Armstrong, we're outside of time, yet the track is framed in editing techniques stemming from In a Silent Way: Shorter obviously can't be playing both horns at the same time. Coming from a century-old culture, Weather Report pursues the electronic frontiers of jazz, par excellence.

Like most of Weather Report's catalog, there are a few decent tracks here and then the rest is more or less filler that is neither compositionally strong nor improvisationally very hip. Unless you're a diehard fan, this is a band for which the best-of collection was tailor made.

I bought this album by accident, while still in my 'progressive-rock-i-hate-jazz' adolescence. At first listen, I hated it (or so I told myself). But for some reason it didn't leave my turntable. For a month. And never for very long after that. It kept pulling me in. . . every listen seemed to reveal some harmony, some rhythm, that i hadn't noticed before. And it still does that, even now. This is not just a great jazz album. It is, hands down, just great music, even if you "hate jazz"!

This album was my first exposure to Weather Report by recommendation of a dear friend and fellow drummer. First hearing was while in Jr. High. Took me aback at first: the rhythms and sounds being so foreign to a kid who liked Yes, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Pink Floyd, and a wide range of other styles. But the album has truly stood the test of time as I add it to the cart this evening. As another reviewer aptly put it in so many words: "Relax and put on the headphones." Or do like I did in the late 70's: Play it softly on a good stereo outdoors on a cloudless, quiet night. The amount and nature of musical expression contained in this recording is nearly inexhaustable.

"Nubian Sundance ..." One day in Los Angeles, on KNAC when it was a classic FM alternative station rock station ... oh, say 1973, John Clark started his show (the Import Show) with this song eventhough it wasn't, strictly speaking, an import. It remains to this day my favourite Weather Report song of all time ... worth a listen if you haven't heard it, and very other worldly. It made a big impact on my musical tastes, and so did John's show. Wonderful album.

Album Is HOT!!! 'Nuff Said

I know that popular opinion is that Jaco was the " man". No question probably the best bass player of his generation, but in my mind, Alphonso Johnson really was the guy who defined how the rhythm section should sound like in order to complete Joe & Wayne's vision. This album was just so far ahead of it's time in terms of world beat, and was really the first to put more emphasis on the "Jazz" in Jazz/Rock fusion. My best Bud and I went to see two shows when they were touring in support of this release . Both times they were opening act on the bill, and both times we walked out halfway through the headliners sets, because we just didn't want to spoil the experience of what we had just heard from Weather Report. And we were huge fans of the headliners! One of my desert island disks. You will never find anything funkier than Cucumber Slumber.