Mysterious Traveller cover

Mysterious Traveller

Released

Weather Report was no more a band than Steely Dan was. The group’s creative nexus was keyboardist Joe Zawinul and saxophonist Wayne Shorter, and rhythm sections came and went. On 1974’s Mysterious Traveller, the funk was deep thanks to fretless bassist Alphonso Johnson and drummers Ishmael Wilburn and Skip Hadden (with percussionists Dom Um Romão and Ray Barretto popping in here and there), but Zawinul’s newfound love of the ARP 2600 synth let things get thrillingly weird at times, particularly on the opening “Nubian Sundance,” which is world music from another world entirely.

Phil Freeman

Recommended by

Suggestions
Winter in America cover

Winter in America

Brian Jackson, Gil Scott-Heron
Plays Count Basie cover

Plays Count Basie

Oscar Peterson
Time Out cover

Time Out

Dave Brubeck
Jazz Moods cover

Jazz Moods

Yusef Lateef
Joy Unlimited cover

Joy Unlimited

Harry Beckett
Continuo cover

Continuo

Avishai Cohen
Starting Today cover

Starting Today

Joe Armon-Jones
At Carnegie Hall cover

At Carnegie Hall

Thelonious Monk Quartet, John Coltrane
The Impossible Gentlemen cover

The Impossible Gentlemen

The Impossible Gentlemen