Black Market (Weather Report album)



Black Market is an instrumental jazz fusion album released by Weather Report in 1976. This album was produced by Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter. It was recorded in December 1975 and released in April 1976 through Columbia Records. Columbia released it again as a digitally remastered CD in 1991.

This is Weather Report's seventh overall album and the first with the bass player Jaco Pastorius who features on two tracks. The back cover photo shows Pastorius, Chester Thompson and Alex Acuña with the band, although Alphonso Johnson played on more than half of the record. The album draws heavily from African influences and its style could be described as "world fusion". The second Track, "Cannon Ball" is tribute to Zawinul's then recently deceased former band leader, saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley.

Track listing

 * 1) "Black Market" (J. Zawinul) – 6:28
 * 2) "Cannon Ball" (J. Zawinul) – 4:36
 * 3) "Gibraltar" (J. Zawinul) – 8:16
 * 4) "Elegant People" (W. Shorter) – 5:03
 * 5) "Three Clowns" (W. Shorter) – 3:31
 * 6) "Barbary Coast" (J. Pastorius) – 3:19
 * 7) "Herandu" (A. Johnson) – 6:36

Personnel

 * Joe Zawinul &mdash; Yamaha Grand Piano, Rhodes Electric Piano, Arp 2600 Synthesizer, Oberheim Polyphonic Synthesizer, Production, Orchestration
 * Wayne Shorter &mdash; Selmer soprano and tenor saxophones, Computone Lyricon, Co-Production
 * Alphonso Johnson; electric bass
 * Jaco Pastorius; electric fretless bass (tracks 2 & 6)
 * Narada Michael Walden; drums (1 & 2)
 * Chester Thompson; drums (3-7)
 * Alex Acuña; congas, percussion (2-5, 7)
 * Don Alias; percussion (1, 6)
 * Technical
 * Ron Malo - engineer
 * Nancy Donald - cover design
 * David McMacken - cover illustration
 * Ed Caraeff - photography