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Fifty Years Ago Today (More or Less)

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[Second in an ongoing series highlighting significant events in Weather Report’s history on their fiftieth anniversary. The first post in the series covered Weather Report’s inaugural public performance.]

The second public performance of Weather Report that I know about took place at the Third International Music Forum, held in the lakeside resort town of Ossiach, Austria. The exact date isn’t clear, for reasons that I will explain below. But first, a bit about the festival itself.

Third International Music Forum

The “3. Internationales Musikforum Ossiachersee 1971,” as it was titled in German, was organized by Friedrich Gulda, a world class concert pianist with broad musical interests, and a friend of Joe’s going back to the early 1950s. Two years older than Zawinul, Gulda was also born in Vienna, and came to prominence by winning the prestigious Geneva International Music Competition in 1946 at the age of 16. Gulda made his United States concert debut at Carnegie Hall in 1950. While there, he found time to pursue his interest in jazz, visiting the clubs in New York and bringing jazz records back to Austria. For jazz musicians in Austria, Gulda’s tales about what he saw in New York, and the records he came home with, served as a lifeline to the jazz world at large, and reinforced the almost mythological standing of the jazz club Birdland to his fellow countrymen.

Gulda had organized the first two music forums in 1968 and 1969 (there was no event in 1970), and for the third festival he envisioned a significant gathering on an international scale, spanning eleven days, and presenting all kinds of music, including classical, exotic, folklore, pop, jazz, and electronic music. Some referred to it as the “Woodstock of Carinthia.” Among the headliners were Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream, Weather Report, and Gulda himself.

Not everyone was happy with Gulda’s ambitions. The large crowds the festival attracted so overwhelmed the bucolic village of Ossiach (population approximately 500) that it wasn’t invited back. At one point Gulda was confronted in a local tavern and called an asshole to his face—something he later laughed off to the assembled press.

The exact date of Weather Report’s Ossiach performance remains a mystery to me. You can find unofficial recordings on the Internet that claim the date was July 27, but the festival took place from June 25 through July 5, so July 27 can’t be right. That led me to speculate that maybe the date was off by a month, making it June 27, which would fit within the festival’s schedule.

However, I have a partial reproduction of the festival program, which was originally posted as part of a piece about Pink Floyd’s performances in Austria (of which there were six over the years). Only the program pages pertaining to Pink Floyd were posted, including a page showing the festival calendar for June 25 to July 1. The next page, which would have described the remaining days, wasn’t posted. (We were so close to unraveling this mystery!) Based on this, we see that Weather Report wasn’t listed on any performances through July 1. So either Weather Report wasn’t included in the program (unlikely, though maybe it was a late addition), or it would have performed after July 1.

Third International Music Forum program excerptThird International Music Forum program excerpt

We also know that Weather Report was scheduled to perform at the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island on the afternoon of July 5. To make that date, the band would have had to fly back to the United States no later than July 4, implying that Weather Report performed at Ossiach on July 2 or July 3. Furthermore, Ossiach is about a four-hour drive from Vienna, where the nearest international airport is located, so it seems likely that Weather Report performed on July 2, traveled to Vienna on July 3, and flew back to the United States later that day or on July 4. I hate unresolved questions like this, so if anyone out there has more definitive information, let me know!

Despite the uncertainty of the date of Weather Report’s gig, we do know they were there because there is surviving video of the band at Ossiach. In the video below, Weather Report makes an appearance at the 1:34 mark, where you see all of the band members setting up for their concert. Later, at 2:20, we see them in action.

Another snippet of video can be found at YouTube (with Gulda nodding along):

I understand that video of Weather Report’s entire Ossiach performance exists, and was at one time was posted on YouTube, but has since been removed. You can find the audio on YouTube, however. In addition, a triple-LP, Ossiach Live, was released in 1971 and includes Weather Report’s performance of “Eurydice.”

It seems likely that Weather Report could have played other dates while in Europe, perhaps at clubs, but no information to that effect has surfaced. We know that Weather Report performed at Penn State University on June 9 (according to Zawinul, this was in fact the band’s first public performance), so there would have been time for Weather Report to do some gigs in Europe leading up to the Music Forum.

Weather Report would make another trip to Europe in 1971, late summer. More about that later.

Sharing Shelf Space with Mariah Carey

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Elegant People at Barnes & NobleElegant People on the shelf at my local Barnes & Noble bookstore.

A friend recently told me that she ordered a copy of Elegant People from one of the local bookstores who had it in their inventory. That surprised me a bit, because I really didn’t think brick-and-mortar stores would stock a book about a 1970s jazz band. But one of the benefits of having your book published by a publisher, as opposed to self-publishing, is that you just might find a copy at your local Barnes & Noble. Here it is, sharing shelf space with Mariah Carey, Garth Brooks, and Jimi Hendrix. I have to admit, I was tempted to move it to the Oprah’s Book Club table. (Don’t ask me about the “meaning” of Mariah Carey—I haven’t read her book.)

An Ode to Peter Erskine

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So I want to talk a little about Peter Erskine, who I first met in 2006. As I recall, we had exchanged some emails up to that point, and he knew about my website, which led me to asking if I could interview him about his experience with Weather Report. He told me that he would shortly be coming to the Bay Area to perform with Japanese saxophonist Sadao Watanabe at Yoshi’s, and suggested that we meet at his hotel in Oakland’s Jack London Square. There we had a two-hour conversation before walking over to the club, where I met up with Brian Risner, who was mixing sound for Watanabe. I hung out with Brian in the engineer’s booth and listened to the show.

At the time, the only other Weather Report musician I had interviewed was Joe Zawinul. In speaking with Peter, I was interested in filling in some of the gaps in my “annotated discography” website. I really didn’t have the idea of writing a book. So it was generous of Peter to spend so much time with me. I think maybe he recognized that I was interested and sincere. It reminds me of something Joe said to me the first time I interviewed him. Surprised that I seemed to know a lot about his career, he stopped me at one point and said, “How do you know these things?” “Well, I’ve done my research.” “You are interested and interesting,” he said, which led to even more conversation. Maybe Peter recognized that I was “interested.”

Over the years, we stayed in touch. When I got serious about my book, he allowed me to interview him twice more at his own home. Beyond that, Peter is the Weather Report musician I could ask any question via email and get a response. Sometimes I would ask some pretty general questions, just seeking to get the perspective of a musician of his stature, or to get a sanity check about something or other. Peter answered every time. He also allowed me to use his photos, and he open doors to other contributors to the book, such as photographer Shigeru Uchiyama. Fast forward to today, and my book is in print and Peter was gracious enough to write the foreword. I thanked Peter for various things in the book’s acknowledgments, but I failed to explicitly thank him for writing the thoughtful foreword. Can you say faux pas? What a dummy!

Of all the former Weather Report musicians, Peter is the most like a historian of the band. For one thing, he carried a camera with him while he was in the band, and he captured a lot of photographs, some of which have made their way around the internet many times over. I believe he also maintained a journal during his Weather Report years, which informed his own book. Beyond his personal involvement in the band, Peter is extremely knowledgeable about the Weather Report’s music before his membership and after.

Peter’s book, No Beethoven: Autobiography & Chronicle of Weather Report, is a must-have for Weather Report fans. He provides a perspective on Weather Report that you won’t find in any other book, including my own. (The other books that should be on a serious Weather Report fan’s bookshelf, aside from my own and Peter’s, are Footprints: The Life and Work of Wayne Shorter, Jaco: The Extraordinary and Tragic Life of Jaco Pastorius, and In a Silent Way: A Portrait of Joe Zawinul.)

One of the cool things about Peter’s book is that it captures Joe’s sense of humor better than any other. This is often conveyed in amusing anecdotes that Peter relates from hanging out with him or handling the day-to-day chores of road life, like going shopping at a department store in Japan. I love these bits of insight into Zawinul. It’s a little more personal than you’ll find elsewhere. There are more than a few laugh-out-loud stories.

I remember that I bought Peter’s book mainly to read about his Weather Report experiences, but I was soon sucked into the whole story. The chapters alternate between a chronological biography and chapters about Weather Report. Peter has been involved in a lot of music that I like, so it was great to read about that in addition to Weather Report. Peter has an engaging, conversational writing style. As befits a world-class drummer, he has exquisite timing; he knows where to put the beats in his sentences. Along the way he imparts pearls of wisdom about being a musician and about life.

If you have yet to purchase Peter’s book, I highly recommend the Apple Books version. It’s a good example of what can be done in the digital format. It is very well presented and chock-full of photographs–over a thousand in all, hundreds of which are of Weather Report. It even includes video and audio snippets. (This may also be true of the Kindle version–I don’t know.)

Anyway, Peter, with appreciation, thanks for all that you have done.

Publication Day!

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Brian Risner with his copy of Elegant People

Today is publication day for Elegant People, at least here in the United States. I know that it is delayed two months in the United Kingdom. Not sure why they do that, nor what the date is in other parts of the world.

I do know that friend of the website Martin Jarosch, who lives in Germany, got his copy a couple of days ago. After digging in, he wrote, “Thank you for this fantastic book.” I said I was glad that he is enjoying it, and he replied, “I am actually devouring it.” Martin is definitely a fan of the band. I wrote this book for people like him, so it’s gratifying to hear his response.

The attached photo is of Brian Risner, aka the Chief Meteorologist, holding an advance copy of Elegant People that I sent him. Brian was a big help in bringing this book to fruition. “The Old and New Testaments according to Curt Bianchi,” he wrote me. “This will become the de facto reference bible for Weather Report and modern jazz history.” I’m glad we made it to the finish line, Brian!