Review: SNJO - The Music of Weather Report, Edinburgh Queen’s Hall

By KENNY MATHIESON
Published on 27/02/2012 00:00

WHILE the band is regarded as one of the cornerstones of jazz-rock, Weather Report always had their own distinctive sound and idiosyncratic take on genre.

The new big band arrangements commissioned by Tommy Smith for the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra succeeded both in capturing the authentic feel of the music, and clothing the familiar compositions in vibrant new musical colours and textures.With former Weather Report drummer Peter Erskine and percussionist Marcio Doctor as special guests, the band were in characteristically fine form, betraying only an occasional hint that a few more performances would add a final polish.

Erskine’s Song For Jaco accompanied nine works from the Weather Report repertoire, including Christian Jacobs’s lustrous version of A Remark You Made, an intriguing take on Mysterious Traveller from Tim Hagans, Geoffrey Keezer’s re-working of Teen Town, and powerful arrangements of Elegant People by Bob Mintzer and Night Passage from Vince Mendoza.

Jacob Mann, an 18-year-old student of Erskine’s in California, revealed a precocious talent in his treatment of Pinocchio, and they closed with – and immediately encored – Bill Dobbins’s colourful account of the mandatory Birdland.

Rating: ****