WEATHER REPORT "OSSIACH, 1971"

 

Here's another contribution by inamorata. The picture above is from the www and was shot during the concert in Oissach (no name given for the photographer).

Weather Report
3. Internationales Musikforum, Stiftshof
Ossiach
June 27, 1971
 
Source: FM or SBD

The earliest known live recording of WR

01 Firefish  13:57 >
02 Unidentified 2:01 >
03 Early Minor 8:15
04 Morning Lake 4:37 >
05 Waterfall  6:38
06 Umbrellas  7:22
07 Piano intro (Orange Lady theme) > Eurydice 14:36
08 Seventh Arrow 5:35 >
09 Unidentified 2:34
10 Orange Lady 11:03

Joe Zawinul, piano & keyboards
Wayne Shorter, tenor & soprano sax
Miroslav Vitous, bass
Alphonse Mouzon, drums
Dom Um Romao, percussion & flute

This show is relatively well circulated, but in variable sound quality, often with the sequence of compositions mixed up and/or one track missing (Eurydice was officially released) or otherwise incomplete. The date given for most versions, July 27, is also incorrect.

This new and uncirculated version is remastered from the best of several versions I picked up over the years, a trade CD I received from an Austrian collector. It appears to be fairly close to the original source but has the usual issues coming with several generations of cassette copies (pitch slightly sharp, azimuth errors, clicks and other artifacts). I have corrected all of these and remastered the sound, and I doubt you will find a better version of this historic show.

Considered to be the earliest known live recording of Weather Report, this represents what might be called the 'consolidated' first line-up with Dom um Romao having replaced Airto Moreira (and the other percussionists, Don Alias and Barbara Burton, who also contributed to the eponymous first album but remained uncredited). Alphonse Mouzon was still on board.

The venue was the 'Third International Music Forum Ossiach' in Carinthia, initiated by Friedrich Gulda, which brought together such diverse acts as, among others, Paul and Limpe Fuchs, Tangerine Dream, Arvind Parikh, Le groupe liturgique de Tunis, Pink Floyd, The Trio, and Gulda himself playing Mozart. While the audience sounds rather polite and restrained during the Weather Report show, Ossiach was flooded by enthusiastic hippies when Pink Floyd played on July 1st. The natives were shocked and as a consequence Gulda's festival had to move to Viktring, also in Carinthia, for the next editions. Selected recordings from the festival, made by the Austrian radio and TV network, ORF, were released on a three-LP sampler by BASF under the title Ossiach Live. This includes, as mentioned, Eurydice from the Weather Report set, in a very different mix from what we have here. The 2 CD edition from 2008 appears to be unofficial.