Bob Schwartz

Must listen: A Remark You Made by Weather Report

Starting in the early 1970s, Weather Report and its virtuoso composers and players—Joe Zawinul on piano, Wayne Shorter on sax, and by the time of this track Jaco Pastorius on bass—were part of the loosely-defined jazz fusion movement. Fused with what? With whatever sounded good to master musicians, in hope that listeners would come along. Their motto might have been “listen without prejudice”. Listeners did and made Weather Report musical stars.

I’ve picked A Remark You Made from the Heavy Weather album (1977), not just because it might be more pleasing to non-jazz people, but because it is so beautiful and contemplative, as indicated by one YouTube listener commenting, “I want this played at my funeral.”

O Canada: An unprecedented musical moment of Neil Young + The Band + Joni Mitchell

It is a day to honor Canada.

The Toronto Blue Jays begin the World Series against the Dodgers.

Trump has another temper tantrum over Canada:

Trump says all Canada trade talks ‘terminated’ over ad criticising tariffs
US president accuses Canada of ‘egregious behaviour’ after release of ad featuring Ronald Reagan criticising tariffs
Guardian

I’ve written about the irreplaceable place of Canadian artists in popular music:

Without Canadian artists where would we be?

To honor the Blue Jays, the Trump tantrum, etc., I offer a once-in-a-generation musical moment.

Martin Scorcese’s The Last Waltz (1978) is a documentary about the last performance of The Band, accompanied by many musical friends, at Winterland in San Francisco. The movie begins with the words “This film should be played loud!” and it should be.

The Band, all but one of them Canadians, were joined by two other legendary Canadians, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell.

Here are Neil Young, The Band and Joni Mitchell performing Young’s Helpless.