Weather Report – Live in Cologne (1983)

The legendary American jazz rock/jazz fusion band Weather Report performed live in Cologne, West Germany in 1983 for the West German TV programme Rockpalast at Sartory Säle. The concert took place and was recorded on 13 May 1983. In addition, Rockpalast is a local media production of the city of Cologne, pertaining, more specifically, to Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln (WDR).

The concert was also released as a double live album by the band through Art Of Groove on 21 October 2011. For this concert, the band performed songs both from their heyday during the late 1970s, when they reached worldwide popularity and acclaim with a series of great jazz fusion studio albums such as ‘Black Market‘ (1976) or ‘Heavy Weather‘ (1977) as well as some new compositions which were rather fresh for that time, including, most notably some songs from their latest studio album released to that date, namely ‘Procession‘ (1982) and even ‘Domino Theory‘ (which would be subsequently released in 1984).

Consequently, the setlist for the entire concert was as follows:

1. Procession (composed by Josef ‘Joe’ Zawinul);
2. Fast City (composed by Josef ‘Joe’ Zawinul);
3. The Peasant (composed by Josef ‘Joe’ Zawinul);
4. D Flat Waltz (composed by Josef ‘Joe’ Zawinul);
5. Blue Sound Note 3 (composed by Josef ‘Joe’ Zawinul);
6. Duet José Rossy & Omar Hakim;
7. Two Lines (composed by Josef ‘Joe’ Zawinul);
8. Plaza Real (composed by Wayne Shorter);
9. 8:30 (composed by Josef ‘Joe’ Zawinul);
10. Black Market (composed by Josef ‘Joe’ Zawinul);
11. Elegant People (composed by Wayne Shorter);
12. Badia/Boogie Woogie Waltz (composed by Josef ‘Joe’ Zawinul);
13. A Remark You Made (composed by Josef ‘Joe’ Zawinul);
14. Birdland (composed by Josef ‘Joe’ Zawinul);
15. The Duet (composed by Josef ‘Joe’ Zawinul and Wayne Shorter);
16. Where The Moon Goes (composed by Josef ‘Joe’ Zawinul).

The recording personnel was as follows:

• Josef ‘Joe’ Zawinul – keyboards and vocoder;
• Wayne Shorter – tenor and soprano saxophone;
• Victor Bailey – electric bass;
• Omar Hakim – drums;
• José Rossy – percussion.

The technical personnel was as follows:

• Knut Schötteldreier – cover artwork;
• Marko Schneider – mastering engineer;
• Brian Glasser – liner notes;
• Joachim Becker – executive producer;
• Tony Zawinul – executive producer;
• Manfred Becker – photography;
• Sound Recording – in charge of the recording process;
• Sound Recording team – Brian Risner, Steve Callahan, and Winfried Pannen.

Therefore, that being said and without any further needless ado or unwanted spoilers on my behalf, I wholeheartedly recommend integrally watching and listening to the following great concert by Weather Report from 1983 in Cologne, then West Germany, embedded below via Youtube. I truly hope you’ll like it! All the best, much health, take care, stay safe, many blessings, and great peace your way! God bless you, have an excellent day, and keep on listening to jazz fusion!

Documentation sources and external links:

• The album’s page on www.discogs.com