Weather Report - Weather Report (1994)

"After nine years with Cannonball Adderley, pianist-composer Joe Zawinul is ready to go out on his own." So read the opening sentence of the lead news item in the December 10, 1970 issue of Down Beat magazine. It was the first that most jazz fans learned that Zawinul, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, and bassist Miroslav Vitous were forming a new band that included 22-year old drummer Alphonse Mouzon.
By that time, both Shorter and Zawinul had established themselves as influential jazz musicians and composers. Zawinul was coming off a nine-year stint with Adderley, and Shorter had recently left Miles Davis. Though they had rarely played together, the two had known each other since 1959, when they were briefly members of Maynard Ferguson's band. Zawinul picks up the story in a 1984 Keyboard magazine interview:
"When I first met Wayne Shorter in '59," he recalled, "I had only been in the United States for a week or so. After I joined Maynard Ferguson's band, we needed a tenor player. 'Slide' Hampton, the trombonist, and I auditioned three tenor players in one afternoon: George Coleman, Eddie Harris, and Wayne Shorter. For this particular audition, Maynard trusted us to make the right decision, and we picked Wayne. He was only in the band for about a month and when he left [to join Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers], we didn't play together for many years, until we did In A Silent Way in 1969 with Miles Davis. After Bitches Brew [recorded in August 1969 and released in April of 1970], Wayne, Miroslav Vitous, and I decided to make a band. We didn't know anything about each other as far as playing was concerned. When Wayne was on the road with Art Blakey, I was on the road with Cannonball Adderley. In those days we hardly ever listened to records; we just tried to survive."