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Weather Report – Sweetnighter

More Jazz Fusion

  • A Sweetnighter like you’ve never heard, with an INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side one
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this killer copy in our notes: “rich and 3D”…”tubey and whomping”…”big bass and energy”…”jumping out of the speakers”…”great space and detail”
  • The sound is huge, spacious, lively, transparent and punchy – this is jazz fusion that really rocks
  • “Boogie Woogie Waltz” was one of the most mindblowing tracks found on any album from 1973
  • 4 stars: ” It is the groove that rules this mesmerizing album, leading off with the irresistible 3/4 marathon deceptively tagged as the ‘Boogie Woogie Waltz’ and proceeding through a variety of Latin-grounded hip-shakers.”
  • If you’re a fan of the adventurous funky Jazz Fusion, this is a Must Own Title from 1973.
  • This is a well recorded jazz album that should be part of any audiophile’s jazz collection

This is our favorite Weather Report album here at Better Records.

Heavy Weather is arguably a more ambitious and more accomplished piece of work, but Sweetnighter is so original and rhythmically compelling that we find ourselves enjoying it more. I don’t know of any other album on the planet like it. We only know of two Must Own Weather Report albums, this one and Heavy Weather. They both belong in your collection if you’re a fan of jazz fusion.

The top end is fully extended here in a way that most copies barely hint at, and the overall sound is amazingly transparent and three-dimensional. The brass is full and rich, the percussion lively and present, and the bass is weighty and defined. All the stuff we look for on a Classic Weather Report album is here.

Note especially that the energy is excellent, and both sides are also very high-rez; the echo trails from all the studio reverb go on for days. (more…)

On Sweetnighter, Watch Out for Sourness, Slowness and Smear

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Weather Report

What surprised us most about the dozen or so copies that we played years ago for a shootout was how wrong most copies of this album sound. They’re SOUR in the midrange. On this kind of music, a sour midrange is the kiss of death.

Those copies that aren’t sour are frequently just plain dull. On a recording like this, so full of percussion — which, to be honest, it’s a record that LIVES OR DIES on the quality of its percussion — dullness is devastating.

And so is slowness. If you have old school tube equipment — great for vintage RVG recordings but way too slow to keep up with this fast-paced and percussion-heavy music — this record is not going to do what it desperately wants to do: get your feet tappin’.

Smear is also another thing to watch out for — smear kills what’s good about this record. The percussion transients lose their snap and the harmonics get lost. The less smeary sides really bring out the funky magic of the recording.

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Sweetnighter Is a Must Own Album of Modern Jazz Fusion

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Weather Report Available Now

We recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile should get to know better, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” with the accent on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life.

The list is purposely wide-ranging. Yes, it includes some well-known albums (Tumbleweed Connection, The Yes Album), but we’ve also gone out of our way to choose excellent titles from famous artists that are less well known (Atlantic Crossing, Kiln House, Dad Loves His Work).

Which simply means that you won’t find Every Picture Tells a Story or Rumours or Sweet Baby James on this list because masterpieces of that caliber should already be in your collection.

Many of these may not be to your taste, but they sure are to ours.

Out of the thousands of records we have auditioned and reviewed, here are a hundred or so that maybe are less well known but have stood the test of time for us. As such, we think they are more than deserving of a serious listen.

Sweetnighter checks off a number of boxes for us here at Better Records

More letters, reviews and commentaries for Sweetnighter.