WEATHER REPORT

DATE: 20 March 1983

LOCATION: Boston, Massachusetts, USA

VENUE: Orpheum Theater

LINEUP:

Victor Bailey - bass
Omar Hakim - drums
Jose Rossy - percussion
Wayne Shorter - saxophones
Joe Zawinul - keyboards

SETLIST:

Vol. 1

01 - Procession
02 - Fast City
03 - The Peasant
04 - dB Waltz
05 - Blue Sound Note 3
06 - Molasses Run

Vol. 2

07 - Two Lines
08 - Plaza Real
09 - Where the Moon Goes
10 - Zawinul/Shorter Duet
11 - Medley: Night Passage/Black Market/Badia/
     A Remark You Made/Rockin’ in Rhythm/Birdland

Accurate to the best of our knowledge, but errors/omissions may yet be
identified by listeners.

RECORDING TYPE: Audience ["AR"]

TAPER: Barry Rogoff (Balrog)

ORIGINAL ART: Gromek

Three concert photos in the package have appeared before, in at least
one case associated with an entirely different tour. Not only are they
genuine PROCESSION tour stage shots, they were taken the very night
previous to this one [New York City, 19 March].

SOURCE AND LINEAGE:

1983 - Nakamichi CM-300/CP1 > Sony WM-D6C (Dolby B in) > Maxell XLII-S

2010 - Maxell XLII-S > Nakamichi Dragon (Dolby B out) > RDL FP-UBC6 >
MOTU 896 > Sound Forge Audio Studio 9.0 > Wave [96kHz/24 bit] >
Izotope RX, CEP 2.0 with Izotope Ozone [mastering and
downsample/conversion to 44.1KHz/16 bit] > Wave > FLAC

REMASTER SUMMARY: EQ and other work to reveal - not mix - extant AR
detail, to every extent possible as the audience heard and felt it. No
attempts to alter band-crowd-venue sound balance, or to suppress crowd
sound as it does not overwhelm either record mikes or band PA output.

No compression or noise reduction applied. Tape hiss is noticeable,
especially during the extremely quite Zawinul-Shorter duet, but even
there the signal to noise ratio remains favorable enough to avoid
risky NR.

INDEPENDENT SOUND ANALYSIS: Several trusted ‘beta testers’, including
Barry, Gromek and others

FROM AN OFFICIAL "BLIND" WRB83 PROJECT TEST GROUP LISTENER:

"So, where do I possibly begin about WRB83." First and foremost, once
more, you have worked your magic on the record, not only are the
separate instruments clearly discernible, but I can actually hear
subtleties such as the mallets striking the vibraphone, the buzz of
the reeds on the tenor and soprano saxes, the rivets on the crash
cymbals, etc.

Nuances of lower frequencies are present as well, how the bass would
actually sound as amplified in the acoustics of the venue. Rarely can
I just close my eyes and, to state what I feel may be an over-used
phrase, be instantly placed at the performance. As usual, the dynamic
range easily surpasses the best commercial releases (but then, your
work on Barry’s ARs has no equal).

My utmost appreciation for the privilege of another thrilling musical
journey."

A FEW WORDS ON THE WEATHER REPORT PERFORMANCE:

"We would've really been in trouble if [Omar Hakim and Victor Bailey]
couldn't play." -- Joe Zawinul, 1984

When Jaco Pastorius, Peter Erskine and Bobby Thomas Jr. all left
Weather Report at once it came as a shock to me akin to my favorite
‘rock fusion’ band, Yes, losing its defining and unique vocalist a
year or so earlier. I just didn’t think there was any way it could
work any more after a personnel upheaval like that. The PROCESSION
album seemed nice enough, but like many I still managed to drift away.

Decades later, as has happened more than once already when setting to
work on a project like this, I now fully realize how shortsighted I
was and what I’d been missing.

It must be said the new lineup was a bit more ‘clinical’ sounding, but
also every bit as  inspired in its own way and creatively brilliant as
any earlier one. My approach to audio work includes a great deal of
listening and re-listening to raw master, work in progress and
tentative final product, over a period of weeks and often months
before release. On the first listen I already liked what I heard a
great deal more than I expected to. The more I listened the more
hooked I became, both on the playing and the new music. To me, a
‘purist’ by definition, this was still Weather Report in every way.

What Joe Zawinul was going through at the time trying to keep his band
alive and find the right new musicians to replace so much of it
overnight makes the performance even more remarkable. Perhaps most
impressive of all, apparently PROCESSION  hadn’t even been recorded
yet and its material was still being developed, during this and other
Spring ’83 concerts!

How Zawinul found his new band mates is storybook material and toward
the end of this document you will find a more complete narrative from
a fan Website, much of it in his own words. It’s a fascinating read.

In the meantime, I hope this effort helps many others find the same
new joy in PROCESSION-era Weather Report and their music. Given the
stunning recording quality - best by far I’ve heard from the ‘83 tour
and rivaling the best analog AR I had ever heard until now - fans
already appreciative of it will no doubt be ecstatic.

SOURCE AND AUDIO WORK AT GREATER LENGTH:

It’s important to note first off that A-D conversion equipment and
methods vary considerably, and naturally quality varies with them. In
WRB83 as in all BLG projects you have the assurance of the best
possible A-D conversions short of what studios using equipment costing
hundreds of thousands of dollars can do.

The WRB83 source meanwhile is a top shelf pre-1990s AR rivaling any
other both for unbelievable sound capture, and for its own unique
remastering challenges. It offers AR detail across the spectrum
comparable to many from the present era, but had some weird properties
requiring a few changes in approach to get it fully on display without
being ‘harshed’ or otherwise distorted.

Its one major wart: a mike cable connection problem on the night
caused considerable left-channel dropout with static, but thankfully
it’s almost completely confined to the second track ["Fast City"]. It
presents in just a few other places, and in them is only a second to a
few seconds in length. In this package we have a 'repaired' version
I'm not exactly thrilled with either, but the dropout was truly awful
and something had to be done or the track left out completely.

In both raw master and first set of test EQ runs a ‘thin’, ‘piercing’
property in the uppermost frequencies was an annoyance and tended to
obscure detail in others, but a couple of old tools used in a rather
radical new fashion saved the day. Highs like upper cymbal tones
remain VERY strong - something I now ascribe to the Sony record deck
as it’s appeared in three so-recorded shows I’ve worked with, although
Weather Report’s 1983 sound system was also a bit on the shrill side.
These highs stop short of distortion’s edge however, and are in
balance with other frequencies. They generated no complaints from the
test group, and softening them any would suppress important natural
tones in many other areas. What may sound at times like sibilance is
actually vivid metal percussion detail, as the above reviewer
suggests, and even provides an interesting illustration of the limits
of early 1980s cassette technology.

Every effort was made to reveal all possible detail in each tone of
each instrument in all frequency bands as far as it occurred in the
band’s PA mix. Lower crash cymbal tones and even audience clapping are
among the important litmus tests for the entire spectrum, including
low frequencies. Once they’re natural enough sounding at any playback
volume, everything else usually is too or needs only the tiniest
additional work.

In WRB83 the paramount BLG goals have been achieved - naturally
occurring balance among all instruments across all frequencies, from
the lowest through the mids to the highest, all in the most accurate
natural detail possible, all as the audience experienced them to the
extent possible in a recording. The sterility, coldness and lack of
"space" in soundboards and savage mixing of industry "live" releases
are preferred by many, but if you’re looking for a real 1983 Weather
Report ‘audience experience’ having as much or even more sonic detail
you have found it.

In that spirit also, PA system output nuances and venue ambience among
many other things paramount to the depth and realism only a good AR
can provide have been preserved.

One of the factors so damaging to live recordings in official releases
is compression, inflicted with ‘consumer-friendly’ playback systems as
a type of red book standard and indeed needed in some of them because
they simply can’t reproduce the kind of dynamic range in a recording
like WRB83. No compression afflicts this or any BLG project, but they
should still be a delight in most if not all playback environments.

Tape noise reduction was considered for WRB83 but ruled out. In an
earlier BLG project involving a 1981 Weather Report recording it was
unavoidable, due to much greater tape hiss amplitude and a lower
Weather Report PA output amplitude. It was highly successful,
generating no artifact or signal damage, but digital noise reduction
technology remains so primitive and dangerous it should not be
attempted by anyone without exceptional hearing acuity and the needed
skills - and then only when absolutely necessary. It wasn’t here.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

Many thanks to Weather Report for so much incredible music over so
many years!

Special thanks to Gromek for artwork so perfectly evocative of the
show’s energy and this effort.

Endless, endless thanks to Barry for another miraculous AR, the
expertise and bravery it required.

Please share freely but never, even THINK of selling for any sum
anywhere. Reseed or redistribute this product in its complete and
original form only. Should we become aware of an incomplete reseed or
distribution, we will publicly discredit the party responsible.

Last but not least, this effort is dedicated to the memory of Joe
Zawinul and Jaco Pastorius, whose musical gifts to us all just keep on
giving.

Lestat, April 2010

NOTES FROM BARRY:

I don't remember anything about this concert and, as Lestat says, that
says something  by itself. It was uneventful except for the cable
problem. The cables were immediately replaced, of course.

This recording is listenable at concert volume on audiophile-quality
equipment. No constraints are placed on the dynamic range as is the
case in commercial live recordings. For this reason, the peaks may
exceed the capabilities of consumer-quality audio systems resulting in
distortion from frequencies that cannot be properly reproduced.

To obtain audiophile-quality equipment at an affordable price,
consider getting high-end headphones, a headphone amplifier, and a CD
player from eBay or other sources of pre-owned audio equipment. You
will find that it's well worth the expense.

My goal in taping concerts has always been to achieve time travel. I
want go back in time and relive musical experiences that were much too
important to me to allow them be heard once and lost forever. And I
want the experience to be available to everyone who loves the music.

NOTES FROM GROMEK:

This has been one of the easiest and possibly the easiest cover art
projects I’ve done so far for a BLG package, and yet it came out as
pleasingly as any of the others!

It’s more of a Gromek cover layout than a Gromek cover design. The
images used are either from the Internet or sent to me by other
members of the BLG team, and appear in the layout "as is" with no
visual editing.

The text layout is all mine of course, as well as the time put into it
;-)

When I sent the test layout to the BLG members they liked it so much
that I was told not to change a thing and go with it as it is now!

So that was an easy decision for me. I hope that you, the listeners,
like it as much too. It’s not overdone, not too fancy, but we feel it
is just right for the musical imagery created by Weather Report.

So please, enjoy the show, the imagery and all the work that went into
them.

Gromek, April 2010

FROM THE WEATHER REPORT DISCOGRAPHY WEBSITE WWW.BINKIE.NET/WRDISC
[edited here for brevity]

"1982 was supposed to be an off-year for Weather Report, but things
didn't work out that way. Their previous album, the self-titled
Weather Report, was delayed several months and wasn't released until
February 1982.

As a consequence, a planned November 1981 tour had to be canceled, and
the band's management scheduled a new tour in the spring of '82. But
by then, Robert Thomas Jr., Peter Erskine and Jaco Pastorius had
committed themselves elsewhere. Thomas was with Herbie Mann and Monty
Alexander, among others; Jaco was leading his Word of Mouth big band,
which included Erskine, on a tour of Japan; and Erskine was committed
to a summer tour with Steps Ahead. Zawinul and Shorter found
themselves in a bind, as Zawinul explained to Keyboard magazine's Greg
Armbruster in 1984:

By the time the [Weather Report] album was finished, we had no band at
all. I was going back and forth to Austria because my mother was
dying, and then we had problems with our management. As great as they
were for other people, they didn't really know what to do with us.

So it was spring 1982; we had a contract signed and we couldn't change
the tour. We already had several lawsuits because we canceled the
November tour. We had to go out on the road, otherwise we would have
been finished as a band. About three weeks before the tour,

I called [jazz violinist] Michael Urbaniak in New York. He goes to all
the clubs and knows a lot of musicians. He said, 'I know this guy,
Omar Hakim; he's a genius. He's the greatest drummer in New York.' I
got in touch with Omar, and at that time he had a deal coming up with
Warner Bros. to do his own record. He's also a singer and guitar
player. He plays all the instruments and wanted to do his own thing,
so he wasn't sure he could make it. The time for the tour grew closer
and closer, and finally he said he would do it.

We had never met, but I asked him to find a percussionist and a bass
player, because we didn't know anybody who could do the tour with us.
We trusted Omar to bring the right musicians. Omar got [bassist]
Victor Bailey and [percussionist] José Rossy and we signed all three
of them before we ever met them; we trusted Hakim. Two and a half
weeks before the tour started, Omar, Victor, and José walked in and
started rehearsing. We would've really been in trouble if they
couldn't play. It was just one of those things, and I call this our
real fortunate period, because we could have really been on ice. It
was tough, and after a couple of weeks we hit the road.

After one month playing in the United States, we went into the studio
and recorded the Procession album. Then my mama passed away and my
family spent some time in Austria. We didn't do anything for the rest
of the year.

In 1983 we did 86 concerts with this band and it really developed into
something else. It was not such a flamboyant band as the one we had
before but the compositions were really being played very correctly,
interpreted correctly. [KB84]"

In the spring of 1983 Zawinul compared the current line-up to the
previous Pastorius-Erskine line-up. "It [the Pastorius-Erskine band]
was one of the greatest bands of all time! That band was a hummer! But
I'll tell you, I think this one is developing into an even better one.
Before, we were a knock-out band, we'd dazzle people and they'd have
certain expectations about us, particularly Jaco. Now I didn't mind
all of Jaco's gimmicry. I thought it was strong musically and really
entertaining for the crowd. But look at what's driving the band now:
not any sort of gimmicry but the music itself." [BAM83]

The material for Procession took shape during a month-long tour of the
US. Shorter told Detroit Free Press reporter W. Kim Heron. "I call it
a universal festive feeling," Shorter said of the album's feel. "It's
not really carnival or a party time thing. But it's a celebration,
that's the word (that ends the song) 'Where the Moon Goes.' The mood
came very early and we had to come up with a word that would cover it
without being misleading in any way, so the one we came up with was
'Procession.'" [DFP83]

Heron's article went on to say, "The album is dominated by the thick
layers of synthesized keyboards which have become the Weather Report
trademark. For many, it's hard to listen to his Weather Report playing
and not miss the more expansive and freewheeling style of Shorter's
pre-Weather Report days. But Shorter sees all of his playing as a
whole. 'It may not always be in the same form, but the same essence
comes out,' said Shorter of his past and his present. 'You don't hang
up your lightweight gloves when you move on to the heavyweight gloves,
heavyweight meaning the larger audiences.'" [DFP83]

Blair Jackson interviewed Zawinul and Shorter in mid-April 1983 for a
BAM article: Jackson: Even with all the personnel changes Weather
Report has undergone over the years, there is an unmistakable
continuity from album to album. Is this because the two of you are
responsible for nearly all the music? Zawinul: Yes, it's always been
our music. And in the last few years, I've written more of it than
Wayne, so it's followed a certain line. When I write something or when
Wayne writes something we are usually writing the whole composition,
even the other players' parts. Now that will change with different
players and with differences in style, but the stock of the music is
more or less the same as it was twelve years ago.

Shorter: The concept of the band hasn't changed; we're sticking to the
form of the original musical conversations we had. We haven't let that
thing that happens to so many bands happen to us, which is they forget
why they got together in the first place. [BAM83]"

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