Havona

If there is a moment in Heavy Weather that defines the sound of Weather Report it is the beginning of Havona. Jaco Pastorius' bass enters with a hypnotic groove, almost as if the bass and drums — Alex Acuña — had been waiting for that exact measure to start. This is not a song that can be explained; it must be felt: that bass that seems to float over the chord changes while Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter improvise melodies that intertwine as if they were a single voice. The recording at Columbia Records captures that energy live, unedited, and the result is a track that doesn’t sound like a studio recording but rather like a rehearsal that grows into something greater.

The album Heavy Weather was recorded in 1977, but Havona has older roots. Zawinul and Shorter had been exploring sounds that blended jazz, funk, and electronics for years, and in this track they took that search to the limit. The production was handled by the group’s three pillars — Zawinul, Shorter, and Pastorius — with Ron Malo as the lead engineer, though Jerry Hudgins and Brian Risner also contributed. The track lasts six minutes, enough time for each instrument to shine without losing coherence. By 1991, Heavy Weather had already sold a million copies in the United States alone, and Havona was one of the tracks that most contributed to that success.