Weather Report - Recruiting A New Band

Recruiting A New Band

On the recommendation of Michael Urbaniak, Zawinul and Shorter recruited the 23-year-old drummer Omar Hakim, a talented session player and multi-instrumentalist who had played with a variety of musicians (including Mike Mainieri, David Bowie and Carly Simon). Hakim was immediately entrusted with recruiting the rest of the new rhythm section. Having failed to secure Marcus Miller as bass guitarist, he selected Victor Bailey (a recent graduate from the Berklee College of Music whom Hakim had played with while backing Miriam Makeba). Hakim also recruited percussion/concertina player José Rossy, whom he'd worked with in Labelle.

The new Weather Report went straight onto tour, where they were received well by audiences and critics as a band which had gained in subtlety and integrity whatever they had sacrificed in power and attack. Zawinul would profess himself to be very pleased with the lineup. The music developed on tour was later recorded for the 1983 album Procession, which showed the band beginning to make something of a return to the "world music" which it had pioneered in the mid-1970s and featured a cameo appearance from The Manhattan Transfer. The consistent, carnivalesque atmosphere of Procession led it to be praised by Down Beat for its "unity and joy" (John Diliberto, Down Beat, June 1983) and it has come to be seen as one of the best Weather Report albums.

Continuing with the same lineup, Weather Report recorded the Domino Theory album in 1984, with Hakim stepping into Jaco Pastorius' old role as Zawinul's co-producer. The album was Weather Report's first album to employ drum machines and samplers (the Emulator), furthering developing the band's involvement with technology, and also featured a guest vocal from Carl Anderson. Critics, however, queried the band's lack of development or musical innovation, and speculated that this might be connected to a lack of creative tension and to Zawinul's now-entirely unchallenged dominance. The band was also beginning to suffer from the revival of more traditionally-styled jazz at the time, which made it harder to market jazz fusion.

Percussionist and singer Mino Cinélu replaced Rossy in the spring of 1984 and appeared on the band's video release Live in Japan (reissued on DVD in 2007). The same lineup played on 1985's Sportin' Life album, which included a cover of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" and appearances by Bobby McFerrin and Carl Anderson. In keeping with Zawinul's technological curiosity the album heralded the arrival of MIDI, which entirely suited Zawinul's compositional and recording methods by allowing him to rapidly and inexpensively write, demo and record music via a set of synthesizers. Critics noted that Shorter seemed more suited to this album than he had to its predecessor, contributing more; and the album was praised for its energetic compositions.

By the time of the album's release, Shorter and Zawinul had opted not to tour the material. Instead, they would take a break for long-delayed solo projects. The principals claimed that the band was still together (despite Hakim's involvement with Sting's band and Bailey's with Steps Ahead), but it was also notable that Weather Report's contract with Columbia Records had just expired, leaving both parties open to other options.