24 Chapter 4 Cloudy with a Chance of Fusion Zawinul and Shorter soon fell into their respective roles within Weather Report. Zawinul assumed the primary leadership position, exerting a domineering demeanor. Ironically, Michelle
Mercer, compares Zawinul’s controlling nature to the controlling quality of the Nazi regime that he was exposed to in his native Austria and quotes Zawinul saying, “I was the bad guy, and
Wayne was the good guy.”1 Shorter, though technically one of the founding leaders of the group, took on a secondary role, retaining a driving force in the music mainly through his contributions
to the band’s repertory. However, Shorter’s influence was undeniably overshadowed by that of Zawinul. As a saxophonist, his performances were technically excelle nt, but were lackluster as a whole compared to his work on his own albums and those with Blakey and Davis. It is as if since Shorter could not get his own touring jazz group together, he decided to pursue the Weather Report idea to remain relevant as a musician.
Weather Report was rocked by a
constant change of personnel, especially drummers. On tours, the band would be in the airport with Zawinul meeting the new drummer while Shorter was sa ying goodbye to the drummer from the night before.2 Bassist Alphonso Johnson, who replaced Miroslav Vitous in 1973, was increasingly put off by the constant flow of drummers in the group.3 In Glasser’s biography of Joe Zawinul, Johnson commented that Shorter was bothered by the constant change of drummers
as well, saying, “I remember Wayne got a little despondent when we went through that period of looking at a lot of drummers. He’d been playing with Tony Williams and all these great drummers, and he really gets off on that — he likes the drummer to play with a lot of fire.”4
1
Mercer, Footprints, 144. Mercer, Footprints, 175-176. 3 Mercer, Footprints, 176. 4 Glasser, In a Silent Way, 178. 2
