REMEMBERING WEATHER REPORT (MIROSLAV VITOUS GROUP WITH MICHEL PORTAL)

Miroslav Vitous is known for many as co-founder of Weather Report. He played with the band first three years and gone when WR turned to more funk/commercial direction. After he played jazz with Corea,Stanley Clarke,released some albums on ECM.

After his many years with interest to electric/electronic sound, he returned back to acoustic bass there. I've seen similar program as recorded on this album playing live by duo of Vitous and his regular collaborator Swiss trumpeter Franco Ambrosetti a year before this album was released. To be honest, I wasn't impressed too much that time. But there, on this recordings Vitous and four supporting musicians play excellent music.

First of all, there is no direct connection with Weather Report music at all. If Vitous years in WR was time of their innovative electric sound, this solo release is fully acoustic. But by it's free atmosphere and strong feeling of innovative sound this album could be really compared with WR first albums.

And it's really great how after all these decades Miroslav didn't miss that spirit of adventure, even when music he is playing is far not so innovative or experimental as genre. But in this album he shows his great acoustic bassist form and even better experimentalist soul, containing free jazz with contemporary, and his music being of free and not too structured form sounds there as real classics.

This excellent release is far from any form of fusion or jazz rock and contains music,oriented to free jazz fans mostly. So think twice before paying for it, but jazz adepts will find there tons of great music.