Jazz for aficionados

Thank you guys,

@acman3, @curiousjim & @stuartk

I first heard this massive percussion and rhythm section  on the Weather Report - Sweetnighter 1973 - (Full Album Remastered). Included Eric Gravatt, Muruga, and  especially who for some reason Miroslav Vitous with Dom Um Romao,  got no love back then.

Check out Boogie Woogie Waltz and 125th Street Congress tracks. I like the whole album and the mystical sound aura it brought to me as a young man way back when, in those days. 

Miroslav Vitous was and always has been my favorite Funkiest double/upright acoustic bass player maestro. His original grooves were all over that Weather Report album and was as hard and grounding as an anchor.

To this day I don’t know why Joseph Zawinul got rid of him. Well, except after getting Jaco of course...

Well as it turns out, I could be wrong and the bass player that was in the forefront of that Weather Report Album Sweetnighter may have been the electric bass playing of Andrew White and not Miroslav Vitous?

If it was Andrew White, the way he pulled bass strings in his playing method made think it was Miroslav Vitous? I know there were the two bass players and both were on Boogie Woogie Waltz, 125th Street Congress, and Non-Stop Home but I thought they were playing off each other? Can anyone expound on this?  

@tyray 

Don’t know if this answers your question but according to Weather Report Annotated Discography: 

"White was recruited for that album specifically to provide a Motown feel on electric bass; he can be heard on “Boogie Woogie Waltz,” “125th Street Congress,” and “Non-Stop Home.” Joe and Wayne previously knew White as a reed player—he played English horn on I Sing the Body Electric—but when Zawinul saw the 5th Dimension on television one night, he recognized White playing electric bass. “Joe was looking at the television and saw me doing that crap, and we knew each other,” White recalled to me. “He said, ‘Wait a minute! I know Andrew from the JFK Quintet and ‘Ball and Art Blakey.’ So he called Wayne and said, ‘Wayne, call Andrew to see if he’ll come over here and make this record with us.’”

Thanks @stuartk , much appreciated. And unbeknownst to me, Ralph Towner was on I Sing the Body Electric too on twelve string guitar. Interesting.

@tyray 

Another Towner appearance on an early Fusion date: Horacee Arnold’s "Tales of the Exonerated Flea". Unfortunately, I can’t seem to pin down which track/tracks he appeared on. 

If you enjoy early Fusion and haven’t heard this album, or Arnold’s Tribe, you might find them interesting: 

Flea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I0ZabeGRRg&list=OLAK5uy_nFU_IRzD1SvDJu5wPQ4gh4zQBt81c4qgc&index=2

Tribe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3GGUdtJkQ0&list=OLAK5uy_kPhzaC11rHynCIg1YEbQuLBa869EuBh9g&index=2