Amazon.co.jp
人気盤『ヘビー・ウェザー』以降のレコーディングから、ジャコ・パストリアス（D）が紹介したピーター・アースキンが、正式なドラマーとして加入。理想的なレギュラーユニットが完成し、ここぞとばかりにライヴ盤が録音された。
本作は、1978年の全米ツアーの模様である。それまでのウェザー・リポートのベスト盤的選曲がうれしい作品だ。ジャコが参加したアルバム『ブラック・マーケット』『ヘビー・ウェザー』からの曲が最も多く、充実している。シンセサイザーやエレクトリックベースのフュージョン的なサウンドながら、スタンダードのDISC2<2>では彼らのルーツが感じとれる。たとえライヴでも、すべての曲をきっちり聴かせるテクニックがすさまじい。
オリジナルはアナログ2枚組でリリースされ、DISC2<4>からのD面には、スタジオでの新録音が収められている。ラストのDISC2<7>こそ、来るべき時代の4ビートジャズといえる。（高木宏真）
From Amazon.com
These live recordings offer an honest, well-rounded perspective of the Weather Report experience, and Joe Zawinul's relative prominence as their coleader and composer, circa 1979. On an arrangement such as "Brown Street," it's clear that Zawinul's vision of electronics was based in great part on his Austrian folk roots and in the varied native musics of South America, Africa, and the greater global village. This edition of Weather Report, featuring former big band drummer Peter Erskine and fretless bass innovator Jaco Pastorius, offered Zawinul and saxophonist Wayne Shorter a stable environment in which to fashion a group sound, although by this time, as witnessed by his solo turn on "Slang" and his prominence on every chart, Pastorius had attained cult status based in equal parts on his impeccable musicianship and his sometimes over-the-top flamboyance. Yet for all their forays into funk and the Third World, Weather Report remained at its core the most jazz oriented of all fusion bands.
8:30 is notable for the dancing, syncopated lines of Shorter's composition "Sightseeing," in which the composer lets it all hang out in a virtuoso turn on tenor saxophone that proves that the rumors of his creative demise were grossly exaggerated.
--Chip Stern
