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Amazon.co.uk Review
Still, there's a lot of good music on the album, which is issued here in 24-bit digitally remastered form. "Blackthorn Rose" is a piano (and melodica) and soprano sax duet of lovesome beauty while the phase-shifting "Nubian Sundance" generates excitement through its orchestrated effects, complex rhythmic scheme and simulated crowd explosions. New to the evolving Weather Report is bassist Alphonso Johnson, who lends a funkier and more musical touch than his sacked (and highly overrated) predecessor, Miroslav Vitous. --Lloyd Sachs
Review
"Nubian Sundance" kicks in hard with two drummers and a percussionist, but there's a curious feeling of suspension, akin to watching Muybridge's horse forever galloping but never moving forward. On top of this, bass, a lot of Rhodes, synthesizers, crowd sounds and vocals create a wonderful impression of a neon-lit rainforest peopled by Rio carnival celebrants.
After the festival comes "American Tango"; a more reflective pace like wandering in the shadows of a Mediterranean sidestreet, the keyboard melody languorous as sleepy sex in morning sunlight. "Cucumber Slumber" (what great titles they had!) is all electric bass, sax, Rhodes and chugging drums.
"Mysterious Traveller" slips in spookily then revs up to a rhythmic workout that recalls Sweetnighter. After all the colour and wonderful grandstanding of the previous four tracks, the acoustic duet of "Blackthorn Rose" between Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul arrives like a welcome, meditative oasis.
"Scarlet Woman" steals in with a plangent sax call, muted desert drum and synthesized wind and slowly steals away again. The album closes with the reflective "Jungle Book", as if recalling the events of a long hot day after the sun has set.
On Mysterious Traveller Weather Report were clearly growing, employing a wider palette of sounds, conjuring different moods: the music is sunnier, more upbeat, colourful and funky than its predecessors.
On attentive (re)listening I finally get the album's form and flow and can place it alongside its predecessors to be enjoyed for its own generous wonders. Not worth buying for the remastering alone,but if you don't own this album go get! (I'm off to investigate its successors.) --Colin Buttimer
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Customer Reviews
Now at last we have a CD version that more than does sonic justice to this jazz/funk/rock fusion masterpiece. On the less dense tracks, the clarity is now so astounding that it's as if an extra dimension has been added. The sleevenotes are informative and the track-by-track band listings are fuller than on the original CD and fuller even than on the original LP. At long last all the vocalists are given credit.
This was the first album where Weather Report got the entire album packaging absolutely right for potential new recruits from the rock audience: spacey cover art, spacey synth sounds, and plenty of pounding rhythms. Indeed the rhythms are the most innovative I've heard on any Weather Report album.
This is also the album where keyboardsman Zawinul's dominance over saxophonist Shorter began to show. On the long opening track, the excellent 'Nubian Sundance', Zawinul contributes layer after layer of electronic keyboard. Almost contemptuously he gives Shorter room for a tiny, run-of-the-mill solo, but the sax does nothing to propel the basic song along. On 'Jungle Book', another pretty tune, Shorter has no part to play whatsoever.
But then there is the gorgeous duet, 'Blackthorn Rose', and it's clear that there is still much empathy and rapport between the two men.
There are two other concert favourites on the album: the title track and 'Scarlet Woman', which Pastorius re-interpreted outstandingly for the '8:30' live LP.
Sometimes I feel this is my favourite Report album. But frankly all the albums from 'Sweetnighter' to 'Heavy Weather' are excellent.
I just don't know why it took Sony so long to polish this brilliancy.
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