RECORDS

Rip It Up, Issue 43, 1 February 1981, Page 13

RECORDS

Phil Gifford

; Weather Report . Night Passage CBS it" ft aam ™TTrr mm rfnfTn Let s get straight to the point here, no prose impressionism, no . esoteric analyses, no historical overviews: Night [Passage is, an ex-' cellent Weather Report .album. It’s . also their best since the mighty Heavy Weather. Not that the two albums are markedly similar mind you. Whereas Heavy Weather was notable for its sheer, catchy, poppiness, much of the new work is characterized by swinging jazz-bop. (There's even a reworked Ellington rave-up, from memory the first non-original they've recorded in 10 albums). But any generalizations sit uneasily on such vibrant music. Claims could , also be made for soul roots. Feel your, back-bone slip to the sly funk of ‘MadagascajjllHQ^ppHi|HpohflH The prodigous Zawinul is, as always, the dominant force, both as composer although by now it's almost impossible to tell where the writing ends and improvisation begins and as monster of the keyboards. Not that .Pastorius ever allows himself to be outplayed and it wonderful to hear Shorter performing superbly once more, blowing away any memories of his previous reticence' \ In some 'elevated' circles Weather Report are put down as musical magpies, pinching the harmonies of ; past generations’ serious musicians. Either, that or as jazz conservatives, clinging to traditional and rock-based tempi in order to attract, wide audiences. Bollocks! Weather Report are giving us some of the most exultant and dynamic small-group music on record. Night Passage , as I said before, is an excellent example Peter Thomson Warren Zevon Stand In The Fire Asylum -, / .... There are many reasons . for an artist to record live. The best is that he can bring a new dimension to his work. A great live album, like Otis Redding’s Live In Europe, puts a charge through songs never felt in the studio. A live album can act as a good retrospective, such as Bob Seger’s double set, or it can give a [performer, a chance to clear out old emotional or artistic baggage, as Bob Dylan has done several times. Some reasons can be less worthy. Warren Zevon's live album, recorded at the ! Roxy in Los Angeles, is almost impossible to figure. It's a tough rock album, which could have been understandable-if Zevon had needed to prove he wasn’t one of the Californian school of laidback singer-songwriter singing, as Glenn Frey of The Eagles puts it. "oohs for I buckslialMHl But Zevon’s songs have always been too tough, too knowing, to be dismissed as LA vanilla. His weak point is not artistic softness but:his singing. In the studio his ,limited .vocal abilities get by and there's a thrill of: a kind in

hearing how close he gets to the edge. On Stand In The Fire, with the band cranked up loud and steaming, he has to resort too often to a hoarse bellow to make his vocal points. Sometimes it works. 'Lawyers Guns And Money', a cry of terror anyway, benefits from Zevon sounding like a man slowly being throttled, and played very loud there’s a sort of frantic appeal, a little after the style of Dylan’s Hard Rain set from the Rolling Thunder tour. The losses are, however, not minor. Zevon can be extremely funny, but on 'Poor Poor Pitiful Me' or 'Excitable Boy' the humour is almost drowned in the sound and fury. On the one hand you can admire Zevon for proving once again that his heart is firmly committed to rock and roll. On the other you have to face the hard fact that not everyone who loves rock and roll can make it live.