8:30


8:30 is the tenth album of the jazz fusion group Weather Report issued in 1979 by ARC/Columbia Records. The album rose to Nos. 3 & 47 on the Billboard Jazz Albums and Billboard 200 charts respectively. 8:30 also won a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Fusion Performance.

Recording

The album takes its name from the band's habit of starting their performance at 8:30 pm. At the time of the tour, the band was a quartet and would take the stage continuously for around two and a half hours, each of the members taking a solo. Wayne Shorter sometimes plays percussion instead of saxophone on stage, and on one of the studio tracks, the calypso inspired "Brown Street", Joe Zawinul's son Erich plays percussion with Erskine and Pastorius.
Jaco Pastorius played a notable solo on "Slang" which started with an out-of-time rendition of "Dolores" by Wayne Shorter, then melded a multi-part bass solo using a rack-mounted MXR digital delay, leading into references to "Third Stone from the Sun" by Jimi Hendrix, "Portrait of Tracy" from his solo work, then "The Sound of Music". He finished playing his bass with its own strap.
According to Peter Erskine, the band had planned for the entire album to be live, but an engineer accidentally erased some of the material, prompting the band to go into the studio to record the fourth side.

Release

The album was originally a double gatefold LP. The reissue on CD dropped "Scarlet Woman" and was released as a single CD. In Japan, the album was released as a 2-CD set with all the tracks of the original.

Critical reception

Reviewing in , Robert Christgau wrote: "The live double their more bemused admirers have waited for years is indeed Weather Report's most useful album. But it also defines their limits. This is a band that runs the gamut from the catchy to the mysterioso. Joe Zawinul is the best sound effects man since Shadow Morton. And when he gives himself room, Wayne Shorter can blow."

Track listing

Personnel