ECM 2073 
http://www.ecmrecords.com/Catalogue/ECM/2000/2073.php

* Miroslav Vitous: double-bass
* Franco Ambrosetti: trumpet
* Gary Campbell: tenor saxophone
* Gerald Cleaver: drums
* Michel Portal: bass clarinet

01 - Variations On W. Shorter
02 - Variations On Lonely Woman
03 - Semina (in 3 parts)
04 - Surfing With Michel
05 - When Dvořák Meets Miles
06 - Blues Report

Recorded Recorded fall 2006 and spring 2007

Review
~~~~~~
© stef

Czech bassist Miroslav Vitous co-founded Weather Report in the early 70s with
Wayne Shorter as an acoustic band. They asked Austrian keyboardist Joe Zawinul
to join, who after a while wanted the band to become more electric, with synths,
and a little more funky, with repetitive bass phrases, something that was not to
Vitous' liking, and he quit the band to be replaced by Alfonso Johnson. Vitous
is a true virtuoso on the bass, classically schooled, his precision and clarity
of tone when playing arco are absolutely awsome, as are his rhythmic and
improvisational skills. I am not too sure what the title of this album refers
to: about what Weather Report could have been without a piano? how Weather
Report could have sounded in a purely acoustic setting? None of the tunes refer
back to Weather Report compositions, except to the reference to Wayne Shorter in
the title of the first track. In any case, in the liner notes he says it is not
the intention to play the music of Weather Report but rather to work with the
concept that he introduced in the band at its creation, that of direct
conversation and equality between the instruments.

Whatever the ego thing, the music on this album is stellar. It starts with a
powerful opener, with Gerald Cleaver's drumming kicking the thing of, and Vitous
alternates pizzi and arco on bass, giving the impression of playing two
instruments at the same time, then the trumpet of Franco Ambrosetti and the sax
of Gary Campbell play some piercing unison phrases, referencing Wayne Shorter's
"Nefertiti". There aren't many bassists who are able to give their instrument so
much voice, putting it on the same level as a horn. After the great opening
track, it gets even better, with a cover of Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman",
hesitatingly, moving, dark, gripping. But the real highlight is the long
"Semina", a suite in three pieces, on which Vitous gives some gut-wrenching,
heart-rending and terrifying arco sounds out of his bass, then later equalled by
both Campbell and Ambrosetti. "Surfing with Michel" brings an exciting duet
between the bassist and French saxophonist Michel Portal. The second
pièce-de-résistance is the long "When Dvořák meets Miles", in reference to the
great Czech composer and Miles Davis with whom Vitous played in the late
60s. The composition is abstract, dense and complex, moving with bursts of
sound, and sounding possibly the most like what Weather Report could have been:
very intense, building on the broad musical background of its musicians and
hence not limited to style and genre, switching moods from joyful to sad, adding
some traditional central European phrases in the mix, in full compatibility with
the dark muted sounds of the trumpet, with Cleaver demonstrating his skills of
playing around the beat, adding accents, texture and depth. The horns do not
really play themes, but rather just a harmonic and rhythmic backdrop for the
soloing. The album ends with "Blues Report", a paradoxically joyful sounding
melody based on a blues basis.

If this what Vitous had in mind with Weather Report from the very beginning,
it's clear that the match with Zawinul was a bad one. And nothing bad of the
dead, but it's also clear that Vitous becomes musically better with the years,
whereas Zawinul was stuck in his commercial dead-end streat. Don't miss this
album. Four brilliant musicians, but especially Vitous' open compositions and
free musical vision are fantastic, and you will hear possibly the best arco bass
ever played. Let's hope he continues in this vein.