Weather Report – Sweetnighter

so unbelievably funky .... them Return To Forever and Miles in 4 albums around 1970 all defined funk rock fusion and this all echoes right through to now in so many genres and recordings .... but we like to go back to the originators and Sweetnighter is one of the best
PS these were the tokers choice round my way right through the 70s :]

Check the proto LTJ Bukem-style ambient jungle on "Non-Stop Home".

I’m not much of a Weather Report fan but here’s one I can get behind. Less fusion, more groovin’.

here is the continuation and the consecration of the sound of Zawinul, already there in his collaboration with Cannonball Adderley (see "the price you got to pay to be free" album ...) and especially the first fruits on the track "the soul of the village part.2 "on his 1968 lp . This record, a complete fusion succeeds, is to put away with Miroslav Vitous "magical shepperd" and Chick Correa "return to forever", magic

Pure alchemical reaction even the most ingenious of music scientist will never figure out...that is Sweetnighter. The instrumental, subtle funkiness and brilliant wah-piano courtesy of Zawinul surpasses any fusion made in 1973. I also believe this was the 1st time Zawinul started to incorporate synthesizer into the band although not as present as Mysterious Traveler.
Musicianship here was sent by the same deity that delivered Tesla(the Serbian inventor!) to grace our ears with delicious instrumental soma!

One brilliant record I found for $1. Some of the best music I've ever heard. Jazz rock

I donated most of the other Weather Report albums I owned to the less fortunate. Not this one. Zawinul points his band in the right direction on Sweetnighter. There's still plenty of free-floating jazz-rock-funk-fusion going on like previous Weather Report productions. However, the goal was clearly set in maintaining and circling back to the rhythm, unlike previous albums.