Night Passage (album)

Night Passage
Studio album with a live track
by
ReleasedNovember 1980
RecordedJune 29, 1980 (#8)
July 12/13, 1980 (#1–7)
VenueFestival Hall, Osaka, Japan
StudioThe Complex (Los Angeles)
GenreJazz fusion
Length48:05
LabelARC/Columbia
ProducerJoe Zawinul, Jaco Pastorius
Weather Report chronology
8:30
(1979)
Night Passage
(1980)
Weather Report
(1982)

Night Passage is the ninth studio album by Weather Report, released in 1980. The tracks were recorded on July 12 and 13, 1980, at The Complex studios in Los Angeles (before a crowd of 250 people who can be heard on a couple of tracks),[1] except for "Madagascar", recorded live at the Festival Hall, Osaka, Japan on June 29 of the same year.

The album introduces a new member to the band, percussionist Robert Thomas Jr. Night Passage dials back the elaborate production of some of Weather Report's earlier releases (most notably 1978's Mr. Gone). What is lost in overdubs is made up in solo improvisation in the classic jazz tradition.

Jaco Pastorius re-recorded the seventh track on the album, "Three Views of a Secret", for his second solo studio album, Word of Mouth (1981).