| OCR Text |
Show Weather Report at U of Utah nal gig. A graduate of New York's High School of Music and Art, he has played with David Sanborn, George Benson, Ben-son, Roy Ayers, and Carly Simon, to name a few. Rossy, 28, studied tympani and percussion at the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music. He performed with cellist Pablo Casals for three years, and was a member of the Puerto Rico Symphony before be-fore moving to New York six years ago. He has performed with Peter Allen, Labelle and Cameo, and has done extensive exten-sive studio work in New York. Over the years. Weather Report has received many honors and tributes. They have just been named Downbeat's Best Jazz Group for the seventh consecutive year, and Shorter Best Soprano Saxophonist for the thirteenth consecutive year. In addition to Grammys for Best Jazz Album of the Year for "Heavy Weather" and "8:30". the band has won such prestigious international internatio-nal prizes as Japan's Gold Disc for "8:30" and "Night Passage", and France's Grand Prix for "Mr. Gone". There have been awards from outside the music world as well; October 8 has been declared Wayne Shorter Day in his hometown of Newark, New Jersey by Mayor Kenneth Gibson, who was a schoolmate of Shorter' s at Newark Arts High School. Weather Report, the jazz ensemble, will appear at the University of Utah's Kingsbury Kings-bury Hall on Monday, April 11 at 8 p.m. The group , has become an institution in the realm of jazzfusion. Unique not only for innovation, but for longevity as well, the group never fails to deliver new musical ideas. Weather Report is the collaborative result of its two founders, Keyboardist Joe Zawinul, a native of Vienna, Austria, came to the U.S. in 1959 to study at the Berklee College of Music. Shortly after that, he left school to play with trumpeter May-nard May-nard Ferguson: his first encounter with saxophonist co-founder Wayne Shorter came while playing in Ferguson's band. Later, Zawinul worked with such greats as Dinah Washington. Yusef Lateef and Joe Will- ' iams. He joined saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adder-" Adder-" ley in 1961. He was able to record much of his own material during his ten-year tenure with Adderley. including inclu-ding the classic "Mercy, Mercy. Mercy." Zawinul's and Snorter's paths again-crossed in the late sixties, when they recorded with Miles Davis' band (of which Shorter was a member for six years). Prior to this. Shorter studied music at New York University Univer-sity before playing five years with drummer Art Blakey. In Davis' band. Shorter performed per-formed on "Miles In The Sky". "Nefertiti". "Filles De Kilimanjaro". "In A Silent Way" (for which Zawinul composed the title track), and the trailblazing . "Bitches Brew". It was after ' this date that Zawinul and Shorter decided to form Weather Report. Many musicians have grown and developed Through their associations with Weather Report. Drummers Ndugu. Alex Acuna and Chester Thompson Thomp-son and bassists Alphonso Johnson and Jaco Pastorius are among those who have benefitted from this creative environment. Besides Zawinul Zawi-nul and Shorter, the band currently includes bassist Victor Bailey, drummer Omar Hakim, and percussionist percussio-nist Jose Rossy. Anxious not to duplicate his previous bands. Zawinul selected these three for their combination of youth and experience. Bailey, 22, began be-gan playing bass in his brother's band in Philadel-. phia. He studied at the Berklee College of Music from 1978 to 1980, and has recorded with Hugh Masa-kela. Masa-kela. Larry Coryell, and Tom Browne. Hakim, 23, started playing drums at age 5. At 9, helayeJliSifirpPfsio- |
